


in the darkness on the edge of town

by janie_tangerine



Series: a runaway American dream [1]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: (A LOT OF BRUCE SPRINGSTEEN REFERENCES), (why did I forget to put that tag before? ah well I'm not now), Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Age Difference, Alternate Universe - 1960s, Alternate Universe - Prostitution, Anal Fingering, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Bathing/Washing, Bookstores, Breathplay, Brienne is the Best, Brienne of Tarth Has Issues, Bruce Springsteen References, Burns, Cersei Fans Please Abstain, Christmas Presents, Coming Untouched, Crossdressing, Developing Relationship, Dirty Talk, Dissociation, Dom/sub, Dresses, Drive-Ins, Dyslexia, Explicit Sexual Content, F/M, First Dates, Foot Fetish, Genderplay, Hospitals, Hurt/Comfort, I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M DONE, Idiots in Love, Jaime Lannister Has Issues, Loss of Virginity, Love Confessions, Makeup, Meeting the Parents, Minor Sandor Clegane/Sansa Stark, More tags to be added with further chapters, Movie Reference, Moving In Together, Moving Out, Oral Sex, Past Abuse, Past Cersei Lannister/Jaime Lannister, Period Typical Attitudes, Poetry, Porn with Feelings, Pregnancy, Prostitution, Public Sex, REHASH OF THAT THING THAT HAPPENS IN CANON EXCEPT LESS TERRIBLE, Recreational Drug Use, Romantic Gestures, Self-Esteem Issues, Self-Loathing Issues, Sex Work, Sexual Experimentation, Subspace, THAT'S PRETTY MUCH WHAT IT IS ANYWAY, The Author Regrets Nothing, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, Tyrion Lannister Ships It, Tywin Lannister's A+ Parenting, Under-negotiated Kink, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unsafe Sex (not jb and not detailed but still), Woman on Top, Woodstock, accidental adoption happening, sandor clegane for mvp, sexual activities WHILE engaging in recreational drug use, the author has officially lost control of what's going on here, the springsteen references got out of control sorry not sorry, western movies being the vehicle for character development? you bet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-07-17 21:39:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 102,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19963621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/janie_tangerine/pseuds/janie_tangerine
Summary: “Brienne, I see you’re a… direct person. Can I be the same to you?”“Of — of course. I mean. I know I’m paying, but — I wouldn’t want you to lie. I’ve been lied to enough.”He nods. “If you think that in this job the worst thing that might happen to anyone is — being the first for someone who’s obviously a nicer person than fucking average when it comes to people around here and who’ll even worry about you getting off, then you’re fucking wrong. There. So, do you want another round?”“I — I do,” she says, blushing crimson, she knows she is, “but — not like the last time. I mean. Uh. I had a dream.”He does smirk at that, and it half does reach his eyes. “Oh, really. About me?”





	1. there's so much that you want, you deserve much more than this

**Author's Note:**

> ... OKAY SO.
> 
> This was like.... not in plans. Then a few weeks ago I was doing this music meme where you were supposed to drabble for JB based on songs that would come up putting your library on random. One of them was Bruce Springsteen's _[Candy's Room](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CyPfb0vOVfo)_ [[x](https://www.springsteenlyrics.com/lyrics.php?song=candysroom)] which to me always was about a guy who's hopelessly in love with the local prostitute, and I made it a canon drabble but then I went like BUT WHAT IF I WENT FULL-ON WITH THE AU and then it spiraled into this monster which I still haven't finished writing (I have three chapters and a half on five done though so there's hope I might finish soon) which ended up not so casually referencing the entirety of the record that song was on, so if you want to play the 'which Springsteen song is referenced here' game you can feel free to. There's plenty now and there'll be more later. I2sg the spitefics are getting finished before august's end and after I'm done with this monster. /o\
> 
> Also: this is part one on five, I haven't put the entirety of the actual specific stuff they've done until the point I'm at in the tags but before the end they're going to up the game quite some, so I guess be ready for some less tame porn in the next parts. The tags will be updated with further CWs and so on later - mind that at some point Jaime's going to have sex with other people for obvious reasons but I'll warn when it's the case. 
> 
> **Also, further warnings to be extra sure that might include plot spoilers** : this fic has past Jaime/Cersei and it's as ugly as my usual, *also* while they broke up and they're done, she shows up towards the end of this chapter being her canon affc self (ie: hitting him in the face) so while the relationship is in the past she's still abusive to him in the actual fic. Also, at some point she hints/there's hints at Tywin wanting to commit him to a psych ward (of the times) which I figured I should warn for just in case, but I didn't put it in the main ones because it's not going to happen and I didn't want to make things sound darker than it actually are. Right, should be all.
> 
> Finally: I own zilch except for the plot, the titles (both fic and chapters) are all from Springsteen's _Darkness on the Edge of Town_ (and yes I set this in 1960s New Jersey exactly for that hey don't judge me), they belong to GRRM, I'll saunter back downwards to try and go on some more. Also, endless thanks to tumblr user robb-greyjoy for the beta work IT'S BEEN A LIFESAVER.

_What the hell am I doing_ , Brienne thinks as she walks down the dark street.

She should stop and come back.

Except that she’s _not_.

She’s wearing a pair of jeans that she’s been told show off her legs (by Sansa and her father and Sansa’s mother, of course, who else would?), but that’s the only thing she bothered to actually _choose_ before leaving the house.

( _Her father isn’t in for the next week._

_He’s a traveling salesman, has been for years, he’s driving through Ohio for the next few days._

_Thank fuck. Or she could have never lied to him about_ this _._ )

She curls her hands around the two-hundred dollars stack in her coat pocket. It’s cut for men, of course, nothing new on _that_. She stops, takes a breath as her boots crunch over a few fallen leaves.

She walks forward.

She shouldn’t be doing this. It’s probably a fucking bad idea. There are a lot of stories about Jaime Lannister floating around town, and most of them are not good, except that she can see how his brother’s eyes turn sad whenever he hears one of them from behind the counter of his diner but never objects, as if he’s lost any hope that whatever he might say could change people’s minds.

What everyone knows for sure is that his father disinherited him years ago, when Brienne was still in middle school and he was barely twenty-five and some family scandal happened that no one in town was privy to.

What everyone knows is that after being disinherited, he spent a few weeks drinking himself blind and when he realized money was running short, he set up his… _business_ in the small house at the end of this road.

Her father swears that he did it just after downing a bottle of bourbon in the diner that Tyrion would buy off a few years later, said that _if it was everything he was halfway good for he might as well make a job out of it_ and then left and went for it, but Brienne wasn’t there to see it. She doesn’t know.

Lannister is rarely seen in town, for that matter.

Everyone pretends he doesn’t exist except for his brother, but Brienne knows that he has a steady clientele; half of the sad, lonely housewives who spend weeks waiting for their husbands to come back from their jobs outside of town quietly, secretly slide inside his house most of the time. The other half only gossips about them, but no one’s ever said out loud. Brienne also knows that he has male clients, too, most of the ones in town who won’t admit there’s a reason why their marital bed is cold, but of course none of them says it. It’s all extremely hush-hush, as _everything_ in this dumb small town she fucking hates and wishes she could leave.

Too bad she can’t. Not for now.

What she knows is that everyone whispers behind Lannister’s back, unflattering things about his job and his attitude and how easy he is and how outrageous and scandalous it is that there’s a _male_ whore in their small, little, respectable town and they wonder why he sells himself for money, except that then half of them actually knock at his door after sunset.

Brienne’s barely even seen him from afar for that matter — she knows how he has to look like because his sister is in town frequently and she knows they’re twins and looked similar, but that’s it.

She walks forward.

She should go back.

Too bad that she thinks she has need of his services, too, and fuck it all.

Lannister doesn’t give out appointments and has a landline that apparently only regular clients have. Brienne sorely hopes that this isn’t a night when he’s busy, but it’s the middle of the week, just after Halloween, which means that most fathers are home because Thanksgiving is close and, of course, Thanksgiving is _not_ a good business time for people into his line of work.

There’s a light on at the second floor of the house he’s rented for years.

 _Do you really want to do this_ , she asks herself for the umpteenth time since she took the damned decision.

Well.

It’s not a question of whether she wants it or _not_ , it’s a question of — being _done._ She needs to be _done_ , and her father won’t care, she knows, it’s not as if she’ll ever walk down an aisle dressed in white with a groom waiting for her and expecting her to have never touched anyone else in her entire life.

She breathes in again, the cold November air hitting her cheeks.

She crunches a few more leaves under her boots, gets to the door and rings the bell before she can think on it twice.

The door opens just a bit not long later.

“What do you want?” A male voice asks from the other side. It’s a nice voice, she thinks. Warm and low and velvet-like. Too bad it sounds neutral and flat, too.

“I need to buy a service and you’re the only man in this hole of a town who sells it,” she replies, not bothering to hide the venom that she has tried to flush out of herself for a week. She hasn’t really managed. She hid it well for her father, but it’s pouring out now again, and she just hopes he can feel it’s not for _him_.

The door opens a bit wider, though she still can’t see his face in the darkness. He can see hers, she’s sure. There’s a streetlamp just over at her right, after all.

“Brienne Tarth, right?” He asks.

 _What_ —

“How did you know?”

He scoffs. “I don’t go into town, but my brother tells me things. Fine. Get in and lock the door.’’

He turns his back on her and heads forward. Brienne follows him inside — the hallway is dark, but she can see a light at the end of it, what looks like a small living room. _He has nice shoulders_ , she thinks as she follows him there, blinking when she finally arrives at the end of the corridor and he finally turns towards her.

 _Oh_.

He’s — he’s gorgeous, no way to put it differently. His sister is an extremely beautiful woman, no doubt, but he is — _wow_. Slightly shorter than her, but not _that_ much, golden hair with maybe a bit of silver here and there, falling over his shoulders in neat, shiny curls, a face that looks out of some Greek statue most likely, with a chiseled jaw covered in a soft, golden beard, and a pair of green eyes that look like bright emeralds, especially in the shitty light of his average living room. He smirks, showing a couple of rows of pearly white teeth. He’s wearing a blood-red shirt over a pair of jeans tighter than hers, and he’s exactly the kind of men that Brienne never presumed would find his way into her bed. At least he’s not looking at her as if he wants to laugh that _she_ is about to purchase his services.

“So,” he says, “I think I have half of your reasoning guessed.”

“Do you,” she replies, sitting down on his red sofa as he motions for her to. “Shoot, then.”

“Hm, you were the only woman in this godforsaken shitty town’s high school who _could_ have gotten away with a football scholarship but they didn’t take you anywhere most likely because you’re a woman and you can’t afford the full tuition, or did I get something wrong?”

Brienne sighs. The only way he can know all of that is if his brother told him, but of course Tyrion knows. Her father goes to his diner. She goes there too, doesn’t she?

“No,” she says. “I suppose you want to know the other half.”

“Well,” he says, “technically, it would change nothing. But I like to do my job right, for what it’s worth, so if you told me why is it that you’re _here_ obviously clutching money in that hand of yours, it could make sure you spent that properly.”

 _Fair._ “It’s not like half of the people around here doesn’t know regardless. Well — my former teammates.”

“Yes?”

“I’m working at Mr. Harlaw's bookshop these days. Because none of those colleges would want me. And my father can’t shoulder all the bills on his own. They started dropping by and playing nice and asking me out. I was flattered.”

“I take you shouldn’t have been?”

She shakes her head. “I closed up earlier one day and I heard them talking behind the corner. They had a bet.”

“… They had a _what_?” He asks, a sudden anger appearing, breaking his flat, all-business tone.

“A bet. About who’d get to fuck me first. Because of course they all knew I’m not, well, I’ve never done it. With anyone else.” She looks from her hands to him, holding his stare, and feeling wholly grateful that he’s not looking at her in pity. He seems to _get_ it, actually.

People say that he was an ass back in the day and hasn’t given much of a fuck about anything bar himself and his family, maybe.

Brienne doesn’t know if that looks true, right now. He looks like he gives many, many fucks about _this_.

“And,” she says, taking another deep breath, “I decided that it wasn’t worth the hassle.”

“So, you’re here because —”

“I’m here because being a goddamn _virgin_ has only brought me pain and trouble I never asked for and I know that if I wait for the right guy to show up I’ll die one, and I honestly can’t — I can’t do that again. And if I lied about it people would know. So, yes, I want to walk out of the door _not_ being one, if you’ll have me, obviously.”

One of his golden eyebrows raises in surprise. “If _I_ will have you?” He asks, sounding slightly surprised.

She knows she’s blushing red. Her freckles are probably showing. She must look ridiculous, but that’s why she’s paying, right?

“I wouldn’t presume that since — since this is your trade, then you’ll take anyone who comes through the door. I mean. If you don’t want to, you shouldn’t feel obliged to.”

She doesn’t know why his mouth falls open, as if he’s genuinely surprised by what she’s just said.

“Miss Tarth,” he says, “just so you know, you’re the _first_ person who’s walked through this door in the last ten years and worried about whether _I_ wanted to have sex with them or not.”

“… Am I?” She asks, taken aback. Surely it can’t be possible —

“For that matter — never mind. So, before your hand gets cramped, I’ll tell you what I tell any other prospective client.”

 _Wait, does this mean_ —

“I can charge for… _specific things_ , if you only want that, but admittedly that’s more common with men. For an hour, it’s fifty dollars, but as this week business is dead, you’re the first client in three days and given the circumstances, if it takes longer than that I won’t charge you extra. No kissing. Condoms are non-negotiable for women, but I suppose you don’t want to risk getting pregnant.”

“Of course not —” She says.

“Good. I — oh, fuck it, none of my usual speech would work with _you_ anyway. If you feel uncomfortable say it and we call it off or start again, but payment is up front.”

“Of course,” she says. “And if _you_ feel uncomfortable —”

“… If _I_ do?”

She shrugs. “You might. I don’t know, it goes both ways, doesn’t it?”

He stares at her. “Christ,” he says, “never mind it. Right.”

He holds out a hand. She slips a fifty into it, making sure it comes from the middle of her stack. He checks it.

“Good,” he says, pocketing it. “Leave that coat and come upstairs.”

Then he winks and heads out of the room. Brienne drops the coat, laying it on the sofa, and follows him up creaky stairs — they’re dark, same as that hallway, but they lead to a room that’s — well. Obviously… for _business_. The walls are white and empty, but there’s a large, comfortable bed in the middle, and the blinders are shut. Obviously.

He takes off his clothes in one smooth, swift motion, and her throat goes dry as she sees his naked chest — all golden skin and a trail of hair leading to his crotch, and he’s well-toned without having _too much_ muscle, and for a moment she feels absolutely inadequate, but —

That’s why she’s _paying_ him, right?

She takes off her own sweater and shirt, revealing the modest white bra covering the meager excuse for breasts that she has, then kicks off her boots, keeping her arms around her middle section.

“Hey,” he says, suddenly sounding serious, “none of that.”

“It’s just,” she blurts, “I know I’m not — this is not — there’s a reason why they were having a bet, I guess —”

“Please,” he says, putting his hands on her wrists, moving them down to her sides, “first of all, sure as fuck I’m a better lay than any of those idiots. Secondly, that’s a real shit move. Thirdly, I think you’re underestimating yourself, here.”

“Oh, _am I_ ,” she blurts, wishing she was just slightly shorter so she wouldn’t need to look down on him, same as she’s felt all her life — she hates being taller than everyone else, she hates how it makes them look weird at her. That’s not counting that she wishes she was more slender and that her breasts weren’t so flat and that her hips would be curved and fit in a dress, and they don’t, they never did. And now she’s naked in front of a guy she doesn’t even know and who is looking at her like he doesn’t mind any of that, and she doesn’t know what she’s doing, she doesn’t, but gods she wants to believe him, she _wants_ to —

“Sure,” he says, and then a hand reaches up and cups her breast, fitting perfectly inside it, and his thumb moves under it and kneads and — shit, Brienne’s been attracted to him since the moment she saw him, and she’s not surprised to feel her nipple harden under his touch, but when he does that with the _other_ hand she moans, and then she wishes she hadn’t, but he’s _smirking_ , as if he just proved her a point.

“See,” he says, “plenty to work with. Now, are you going to lie down?”

She nods, doing it without speaking a word, and takes off her jeans and horribly boring and white underwear as she does, letting it slip to the ground, then raises the covers and does lie down on the mattress.

“Good,” he says, still not taking off his own jeans, and then he smirks again as he moves on top of her, his knees around her hips, taking a good look at her, and shit, _shit_ , on one side she hates it, on the other he’s not looking at her in distaste or like this is the worst job he’s had in the last decade, and she knows she’s strung tight and all her muscles are coiled, but then he shakes his head, leans down, kisses her cheek and runs his tongue down her neck until he gets to the middle of her chest, a hand reaching in between her legs, slowly.

She opens them, breathing in, and a moment later he’s touching her where only _her_ own fingers have found their way in a few years ago when she felt like she would explode if no one touched her _there_ but no one quite ever explained her how it was supposed to go, but he’s doing it with expertise, knowing here to put them, and she moans a little when he slides one in, moving it just _right_ , and somehow it never felt this good when it was _her_ doing it. She had been expecting him to just go for it and fuck her outright, but to her surprise, he _doesn’t_ — he takes his time to work her open with his fingers while his mouth treads all over the skin on her chest or her shoulders, and when he asks if it’s too much or not the moment it’s near her breast, she shakes her head and sucks lightly on it, too, just before slipping three fingers inside at once, and oh, _oh_ , she hadn’t expected any of that, and she thinks she’s less coiled up now, more relaxed, less worried —

He leans up, still smirking down at her. Then he slams his fingers inside, _deep_ , and Brienne feels herself clamping around them, her entire chest spasming, and oh, _oh_ , wait, did she just —

“That,” he says, “was to get you to relax.” Then he _winks_ at her, that bright green of his eyes almost sparkling in the lights of the room, and oh, he _didn’t_ turn them off, she realizes now. Then he moves his hands to her knees, spreading them more apart, and when he leans down and puts his _tongue_ on her Brienne about screams but then bites down on the pillow instead, figuring making noise is not a good idea, but then his tongue licks at her and touches her _inside_ where only her fingers and his had been, and where she’s wet and warm and oh, _oh_ , she had no idea that was how it’d feel, Sansa did tell her once, in secret, of when she did it with her boyfriend that thankfully her parents don’t mind she’s with, but then she can’t think about _that_ anymore, because she’s too busy trying to not moan out loud, and before she knows her hands have gone to his hair, not quite tugging but not even pressing his head down even if she kind of wants to —

He leans back.

“Just so you know,” he grins, “I don’t mind. And you _can_ make noise,” and then he’s back to suck at her clit, drawing moans out of her mouth and it’s not long before she comes, again — he licks her clean without even batting an eyelid, and he doesn’t look disappointed when he leans up.

“For your consideration,” he breathes, sounding hoarse, taking off his jeans, _finally_ , “you taste as sweet as anyone else does, under there. No need to think you’re not _performing correctly._ ” He sounds smug, obviously he does, but Brienne for some reason doesn’t feel mocked, and so she nods at him and spreads her legs wider, her eyes going to his dick as he slips on a condom, and —

And he’s _hard_ , he is, and she doesn’t think she saw him reaching down with his hands to make sure he was ready, and was he hard for _her_ , she can’t believe —

“What,” he says, moving in between her legs, graceful, as if it’s a natural motion to him, “are you that surprised?”

She swallows, opening her legs again for him, figuring that _this_ is what she came here for and she’s not going to chicken out now, breathing out when he moves up to her entrance, slowly, slowly entering her.

“I — people don’t — not for me,” she blurts as he slides inside her, easily for how wet she is, and she doesn’t expect his hands to move up and frame her face, and she doesn’t even care she can smell herself on the right one now, not when he thrusts inside her once, twice, and looks for once uttermost serious as he shakes her head.

“Listen,” he groans, “I — this is not standard, _oh_ ,” he goes on, thrusting inside her again, “but you’ve got nice legs, nice _muscles_ if I can say so —” She groans, reaching up with her legs, wrapping them around his back. “Yes, _exactly_ ,” he agrees, nodding, before thrusting inside her again. “nice hands, you don’t tear hair out while people are giving you head, which is damn well appreciated,” he keeps on, and then a burst of pleasure tears through her as his cock finds the place her fingers had before, and he’s warm and heavy but _not that much_ on top of her, and his mouth is coming near her ear as he whispers —

“And you’ve got a pair of damn nice eyes which show you’re way more of a fucking decent person than most who come through my door, never mind that there’s nothing wrong with your cunt, so excuse me if I didn’t need to pretend _you_ got me hard,” he blurts, kissing his way along her neck, and then he goes faster but without being rough, and this is _not_ what Brienne heard first times were like. Most of the girls she knows who ever talked about it when she was around, and of course it was a _secret_ thing that no one else was supposed to know about, they all said it was quick and either painful or nothing special and that the guy didn’t know where to put his hands and came in five seconds, and she hadn’t known what she had expected, but not for her blood to run hot inside her, going _lower_ , for the first time in a row as her hands grab his shoulders and haul him closer, and she dares bringing one of them back to his hair as he fucks into her faster and faster and _faster_ , and he’s moaning all over, too, and when her orgasm takes her for the third time she lets him hear it, staring at the white ceiling above her, and it doesn’t feel sordid or _bad_ or sad as she had figured it might be.

Except that when he slides out of her with a satisfied smile and sweat all over his face, she can see that he hasn’t come, shit, she _really_ was quick, wasn’t she, but he looks close, and before his hand can reach down —

“Wait,” she tells him, “I — I could — do that, if you want to,” she finishes, lamely, and _then_ he looks surprised again.

“You don’t have to,” he says, slow. “It was about you, not about _me_ , I should have tried to —”

“Maybe I want to,” she says, knowing she’s blushing like crazy, but the adrenaline is making her feel bold, and when he shrugs and says of course then, sounding surprised, still, she takes the condom gingerly off him and then wraps her hand around his dick, and oh, she’s only ever thought of doing this to someone, but it can’t be hard now, can it, and so she strokes him once, twice, thrice, a bit faster, until he’s telling her that _yes_ he’s close and she just has to do it _again_ , and she does, she _does_ , and then he’s coming against her palm, spilling all over it, and _hard_ , as if he enjoyed it, as if _she_ made him come this hard, and maybe for a moment she can believe that it was _her_ and not, well, some other most likely explanation.

She drops back on the bed for a moment, realizing that her legs are stained in red and the sheets are, too, but not overtly much, and he drops on it next to her for a moment. He’s breathing in and out, in and out, in and out, and then he looks at her —

“It’s fine,” he says before she can apologize for the sheets’s state. “I _figured_ it might happen,” he winks, and he looks tired but also like he means it. “If you want a minute, I’m not kicking you out. Also, I’m sure _I_ was a better lay than any of those assholes.”

She has to grin back as she regains her breath and nods at him. “Can’t doubt that. Uh, I —”

“Don’t _thank_ me, fuck’s sake. It was your dime, not mine. If you want to take a shower, it’s right over there, this room has the bathroom coming with. Feel free to tell everyone I’m good, I might need clientele here.”

She rolls her eyes, gets out of the bed and heads for the shower, quickly washing herself before putting back on her underwear and jeans and shirt. She looks at herself in the mirror.

She looks the exact same as she did _before_ she had sex.

Somehow, she had figured something would change, but except for the soreness in her legs and the fact that she feels _good_ , nothing has.

He’s still naked when she comes out of the bathroom perfectly dressed.

“Uh, I’m done. I — honestly, you said not to, so I won’t, but — I appreciated that you made it… worth my while, I guess.”

For a moment, he looks _sad_ as he shakes his head and stands up. “I like to think I’m a professional,” he grins, but it’s empty. She can see it. “And you deserved at least a more than good first lay. Don’t waste time with assholes, though.”

“I — I won’t. I’ll — see myself out then?”

He shrugs. “There’s nothing to steal in here anyway, and I doubt you would. Sure. See you around, Brienne.”

“Uh, thanks, er —”

“You can call me Jaime,” he winks back, “it’s not like you don’t know my name, _right_?”

 _Yes,_ she has to admit to herself.

 _Yes,_ she does know that, indeed. She goes downstairs, puts on her coat and leaves the house fifty dollars lighter than she came and pleasurably sore, and maybe she smiles to herself as she goes back home.

It was good.

It was _better_ than good.

Too bad that she’s the kind of person who has to pay to get it.

— —

Thing is: she had thought she’d scratch that itch and be at rest.

It’s just _sex_ , after all. She finally had it, she shows how it feels now, she knows what she’s missing out and no one can take her first time from her because they thought it would be fun. And she had it _good_ , which is more than most of her acquaintances can whisper during nights out or birthday parties that she attends just because she’s invited out of obligation.

But.

 _But_ , two days after, she wakes up after a dream in which she held Lannister down against his bed and she kissed him the way he kissed her and she touched _him_ the way he touched _her_ and she made him come once, twice, thrice, the same way _he_ had made her come, and she’s burning in between her legs and when she reaches down to get herself off, it doesn’t take long for her to come, even if it’s not as _good_ as it was when he did it.

She washes, goes to work in the bookshop where not many people walk in, and good thing her boss is actually one of the few men who doesn’t look at her _wrong_ every other moment. She thinks about Lannister’s green eyes and golden curls and skilled hands and she feels her throat closing up.

— —

She does give her father half of her paycheck for expenses — he’s getting older, after all, and being a traveling salesman is not paying him any favors.

She doesn’t really spend much of the other half, though — what should she spend it on other than gas and the cinema once in a while?

Five days after losing her virginity, Brienne opens her savings box and slides another hundred out.

She walks up until his house, but it’s just in time to see a man come inside.

The day after, it’s a woman. She thinks it’s Selyse Florent. The day after that, she’s at the diner with her friends making a disgusted face as she talks about the resident whore living on the edge of town.

Brienne snorts into her coffee as she notices Tyrion Lannister’s eyes cloud while he looks the other way.

— —

A week after, no one is at the door.

She knocks.

He opens it.

“Huh,” he says, “what brings you here? You want a refund?”

He’s joking, though. She can hear it. She also sees a light bruise on his neck. She says nothing about _that_ , even if it makes her stomach coil in shame.

“No,” she says. “I want another round.”

He raises an eyebrow, letting her in. “Let’s talk, then.” He doesn’t sound disappointed.

Brienne swallows and follows him to his living room.

“So,” he says, “I suppose my dick’s _that_ good?”

She snorts, unable to stop. “Maybe,” she admits, “but don’t get too ahead of yourself.”

“Well,” he says, “no one’s booked me for the night. What can I do for you then? You want another round like the last time? Because believe me, you have no reason to look _that_ worried if it’s the case.”

“… I don’t?”

He snorts, and she sees that it doesn’t reach his eyes — for a moment he looks like he’s sad, all over again, but then he shakes his head. “Brienne, I see you’re a… direct person. Can I be the same to you?”

“Of — of course. I mean. I know I’m paying, but — I wouldn’t want you to lie. I’ve been lied to enough.”

He nods. “If you think that in this job the _worst_ thing that might happen to anyone is — being the first for someone who’s obviously a nicer person than fucking average when it comes to people around here and who’ll even worry about _you_ getting off, then you’re fucking wrong. There. So, do you want another round?”

“I — I do,” she says, blushing crimson, she knows she is, “but — not like the last time. I mean. Uh. I had a dream.”

He _does_ smirk at that, and it half does reach his eyes. “Oh, really. About me?”

“Maybe,” she admits. The money feels scalding in between her fingers. “I — it was the same as what we did the last time, but — I was doing to you what you did to me. And — I thought about doing the same with others, but — it didn’t quite — it didn’t feel the same. I want — how much is it for _that_? If you want to, of course.”

She meets his bright green eyes again. He seems surprised. She can see his throat working up and down, up and down —

“With _the same_ ,” he says cautiously, “you mean… _exactly_ the reverse? No tying up, no choking, no —”

“No,” she shakes her head, even if now that he’s said it, she feels like she _would_ want to try that out with him, and _what’s wrong with her_? It’s not what women should be thinking of, it’s not it’s not it’s _not_ but the idea is making her blood boil —

“Just, uh, the same.”

“Well,” he says, “I usually charge extra for… _specifics_ , but it doesn’t seem like it’s what you’re asking for. No kissing is still a rule.” He holds out a hand.

She slips another fifty inside it.

He smiles slightly. It maybe does reach his eyes, a bit.

“Well then,” he says, “how do you want me?”

— —

She tells him she wants him on the bed, and tells him to not take his clothes off. He lays down on it after taking off his shoes. She considers taking off her shirt, but that’s not what she wants, and only moves on top of him after putting away her jeans and underwear.

She _had_ dreamed she had kissed him first, but he said not to, and so she doesn’t, but she opens up his shirt instead, her fingers shaking.

“One thing,” she says as she moves it out of the way, uncovering his naked chest.

“Sure,” he smirks. “It’s your dime, isn’t?”

“About _that_ ,” she breathes. “I — I don’t want you to fake it if you don’t enjoy what we end up doing. I mean, I guess that you didn’t pretend to like it the first time, too, but just in case... I’m not here for _that_. You don’t have to make me think you’re liking it just because I paid.”

For a moment, he looks about to laugh.

Then he seems to realize she’s absolutely, _entirely_ serious. “All right,” he says. “I won’t.”

“Good,” she says, and moves her mouth to his neck.

It’s weird for a moment, tasting his salty, warm skin, but as she trails down, her hands touching his chest, she can feel his heartbeat speed up a bit, and she lets herself linger there — she licks at his nipples once, twice, and she can feel him groaning under her as he arches his hips slightly upwards, so she does it again, her mouth on one and her hand on the other, and then he groans again, louder, and she can feel that he’s gotten hard.

She shouldn’t make much of it, she’s _paying_ him for this, as pathetic as it sounds and it might feel, but — but she’s dreamed of this and he didn’t say he’d hate it, and so she moves back a bit, and maybe he whines slightly in the back of his throat, but then he lets out a relieved breath when she opens his jeans and takes them off. He’s hard, _he is_ , maybe not full-on, not yet, and she’s never done this, just thought about it, but she doesn’t just want to touch him like she did the first time.

She wants —

She leans down, tentatively licking him from base to top, and his hands grasp at the sheets, and if she looks at him it doesn’t seem like he’s faking it.

Then again, he did tell her he wouldn’t lie, did he —

She does it again and _again_ , taking the tip inside his mouth, sucking on it slightly, then taking him in deeper and deeper until she feels like she’ll choke if she does it more, tries not to use her teeth and her heart skips a beat as his hands reach down and touch her head, same as she had with him before, but he doesn’t push her down or do anything other than _that_ , and so she covers with her hand the part of his cock she couldn’t take in her mouth and keeps on sucking him off, taking her time, feeling salt all over her tongue and feeling him get harder and _harder_ until he tugs at her hair, and oh, maybe it means —

It _probably_ means —

She could move away.

She doesn’t, waiting until he spills inside her mouth, moving a bit back so she can swallow, and maybe half of his come ends up on her chin and she has to wipe it away, but he did come inside her mouth, _hard_ , and it makes her blood boil as she moves back up on the bed, kneeling over him again, and when he opens his eyes his cheeks are flushed under the beard and his pupils are blown and he’s looking at her as if he doesn’t know what to make of her but he doesn’t find it a _problem_ , which is good, because then she can reach down again and touch his cock again, and again, while he groans and moans in approval, her fingers becoming faster and faster and swifter.

“Where are the condoms?” She asks when she feels that he is hard enough that he could — he could —

“First drawer,” he chokes, and she reaches for it, taking one, putting it on him and then sinking over him without even getting herself ready — she was so wet she could feel she’d have slid in without a hitch, and she _is_ , and she lasts less than he does, but it doesn’t matter. She rides him with his hands moving to her hips to find a better angle until he moans _loud_ and comes, too, his hips arching off the mattress again and her name dropped in the middle of a bunch of curses, and so what if when she comes down from it she moves a strand of sweaty hair away from his face before sliding off him?

She _does_ notice that he seems to lean into it, for one moment.

Then she’s at his side and he’s breathing as if he just ran a marathon, and when he looks at her it’s with bright, wide green eyes that now seem almost intrigued.

“Let me tell you,” he says, covering himself up, “these were the easiest bucks I’ve ever made.”

She _has_ to laugh at that. A bit.

“Really?”

“Please, I got paid and you did all the work, I won’t be the one telling you it was a hassle.”

She laughs again, notices that she has ten minutes left and decides to not cash in on them — she takes her shower, puts her clothes back on while he takes her place, and this time he walks her down to the living room.

“A _pleasure_ doing business with you,” he winks.

She wishes she could feel offended at that.

She really can’t.

“Likewise, Lannister,” she tells him, and heads back home with a leftover fifty in her pocket.

— —

She thought _that_ would get the itch scratched.

She’s definitely not a virgin anymore.

She’s gotten the proof that as much as she’s not experienced and as much as that probably wasn’t anyone’s idea of getting head properly and as much as she might be lacking when it comes to her looks, she _can_ make a man come twice in the same hour.

Then _why_ does she keep on dreaming of _his_ face at night, of driving into the light of his bright, bright green eyes as she fucks him against that bed, of kissing him the way she’s never been allowed to, of his head in between her legs again except that now _she_ would tell him what to do and how to, _why, why, why_?

She tries to rationalize it. He’s attractive, he’s _her_ kind of attractive, he hasn’t made fun of her once, he didn’t seem to find her repulsive. Of course she’s dreaming of doing all of _that_ with him.

She imagines anyone else in his place one night, from any other man she’s been attracted to in real life to a few of her favorite Hollywood movie stars, but it doesn’t quite work.

Shit.

She only ever went to him to make sure no one could ever take her first time, not if it wasn’t on her own terms.

She had never signed up for imagining his face whenever she had to even _think_ about sex.

— —

She doesn’t go back.

Not _at once_ , at least. First of all, she doesn’t have fifty bucks to spend every time she feels like getting naked, and fuck, if she had known that tasting it once would make her want to come back for it, again and again and _again_ , she’d have never gone to him.

But she _can’t_ — she can’t. He’s out of her league in any sense unless she _pays_ him, and as open-minded as her father is and as much as he hates this damned place as much as she does, she’s pretty sure that going up to him and saying that she dreams at night of the only resident male whore in town is not what he had envisioned for her.

Well, he had envisioned other things for her. Better things.

Same as _she_ did, except that those _ten_ letters of rejection said it all.

She goes to work, cashes another check, dreams of kissing Jaime Lannister into that mattress every night the way she had dreamed she’d kiss and hold hands with Ronnet Connington once, or the way she had thought she would kiss Hyle Hunt back when she thought she might accept _his_ gifts, wakes up feeling angry and sad and _frustrated_ and lonely and wishing she could just take her father’s car, drive out of this shithole of a place, head for New York City and never come back.

She knows she won’t, she knows she _can’t_.

So she goes to work, puts the half of her paycheck that she keeps for herself in her savings and resists the temptation of grabbing another fifty and sneaking out, and if going to bed she wonders _why_ did Lannister look so _sad_ all the times in which she didn’t seem to have taken him by surprise, with the exception of when they fucked, well, no one knows.

Do they?

— —

One week after the second time, she goes to Tyrion’s diner before work, as usual. She could have coffee at home, but she’d rather have it somewhere else. Tyrion hands her the usual cup of black she always gets, with knowing eyes, but not unkind. She doesn’t say a thing. She supposes Jaime told him she has been a client. She doesn’t think she’s angry for that.

She’s halfway through her cup when Cersei Lannister walks in through the door.

That’s _strange_ , because Brienne always sees her around town in the only fancy restaurant they have or giving conferences for work and so on, not in her brother’s diner. Tyrion immediately goes stiff at the sight, as if he doesn’t like that she’s come inside. Brienne is the only customer right now, for some reason, so she stares down at her coffee and pretends to be worrying about the newspaper under her eyes. Not that she’s really reading it.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Tyrion asks her, not low enough that Brienne can’t hear it.

“You need to convince him to stop,” Cersei says without a preamble.

Tyrion snorts. It doesn’t sound pretty. “You’re telling _me_ I should convince him of doing _anything_ when it’s only _your_ fault if he pays the bills the way he does?”

Oh.

They’re talking about —

“Nonsense,” Cersei hisses, and Brienne can’t help thinking that they don’t sound alike. Not at all. “ _I_ never —”

“Can it,” Tyrion tells her, “it _is_ your fault, you know that I’m never going to take your side over his and if you think that I’m going to tell him to go to whatever hospital Father has found that would most likely make things even worse just because you two can’t handle the gossip, fuck you.”

Brienne glances at the side. She can see that Cersei has a hand curled in a fist, but she does nothing. She drinks some more of her coffee, feeling so at unease she thinks she might throw it up. _Whatever hospital Father found_?

“Well, he can’t keep on ruining business for us the moment people finds out what he does for a living,” she hisses.

“Again, whose fault is that?”

“No one ever forced him to —”

“Cersei, good fucking — leave. No, I’m not. Let me guess, you went to see him before, didn’t you?”

“Of course, and he’s being his usual _idiot_ self and he won’t hear —”

“Leave,” he says at once, sounding like _he_ will throw up. “Now. You and Father can go fuck yourselves both.”

She glares at him, punches the counter hard enough that Brienne jerks on her seat, and then leaves.

She breathes in relief before downing the rest of her coffee and standing up, going towards the counter.

“Uh,” she blurts, “I — you probably — it’s not my business, but if you need any help next time —”

Tyrion looks at her with those black and green eyes of his, not telling her to fuck off.

“What,” he says, “you’re saying you’re volunteering to kick my sister out?”

“You seemed bothered,” Brienne shrugs. “I’ve scared off worse people, for that matter.”

Tyrion snorts, then reaches for the pastries’ showcase and hands her a cinnamon roll.

“What —” She starts, not having expected it.

“On the house,” he says. “I’ll remember the offer. By the way, uhm. No one’s around, I guess, so —”

“If this is about the two times I, uh, met your brother —”

“Sort of,” Tyrion says. “I just, we do talk. And while I’m not going to tell him how to live his life, I can see it’s hardly what makes him happy. I just figured you should know that while he never _talks_ about whoever comes to his place, uh, he was here a few days ago. He heard your… _not_ friends from that bet talk about you. He seemed fairly displeased with them, so I asked, and he told me to not tell anyone unless I wanted him to disown me in turn, and he said that it was a travesty they’d say such shit about you when he only wished more people who’d come through his door were somewhat like you. Then he didn’t say anything else, and I didn’t press, but — well. You made him slightly less miserable than his usual _and_ just offered to defend my honor here, I think you deserve the cinnamon roll.”

Brienne, knowing exactly what he’s doing here, takes it.

“Thank you,” she blurts, and then heads out before she’s late for work.

Shit.

What the _hell_ has she gotten herself into?

— —

It’s another slow day.

That is, until Jaime Lannister walks through the door wearing an old, worn-out green coat that compliments his eyes but has seen better days, and none of the fancy clothes he wears when on the clock.

Mr. Harlaw isn’t around for the day, he’s at a convention in Philly, but it’s not as if she can’t man the shop on her own. She’s cleaning shelves when the bell rings and she finds herself in front of him, and she can see at once that _right now_ he doesn’t have much of the confidence he radiated when she knocked on his door.

“Hi. Uh, can I help you?” She asks, keeping her voice as polite as possible, trying to not betray how hard her heart is beating.

He comes closer, his hands stuck in his pockets.

“I — yeah, I guess,” he says, looking as if he feels completely out of place. “So, uh, let’s say that I haven’t read anything for, you know, fun or the joy of it in a long time.”

“A long time would be…?” She asks, immediately regretting it. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have —”

“It’s all right,” he says, looking at her, his lips pressed together. “Since I didn’t graduate from college,” he says, so — when he fell out with his family, right? She nods, and he seems surprised that she doesn’t… say anything else.

“You wouldn’t be the first person in the world,” she finally says. “You want to get back into it?”

He grimaces, but schools his features back into that smirk that doesn’t reach his eyes.

“Let’s say I do. You’ve got something short and sweet I could try out?”

“Well, there’s a lot of short and sweet,” she says, thinking about it. “What it is that you usually like?”

He looks down at the ground, biting down on his lip, and she decides that maybe she needs to _not_ go for the direct questions. “Let me guess,” she says, hoping it doesn’t make it worse, “you usually went for whatever they forced you to read in school and you hated it so you don’t have a _preference_?”

Shit. Now he’s looking at her half-gratefully and half like he’s _impressed_.

“So what if you’re right?” He shrugs, his hands still in his coat pockets.

“Then you just have to forget what they forced you to read in school,” she says, and then she thinks, _maybe I know what he might like_. “And I just thought of two short ones that feel like you might enjoy them.”

He gives her a small smirk. It seems sincere. “Nice. What?”

“Wait a moment,” she says, going to the _S_ section under modern narrative. She’s pretty damn sure that he can’t have read at least one of these at school and if he read the other she’ll find him something else — she takes both small books out of the shelves and hands them over at him. He squints at the covers for a moment.

“ _The Catcher in the Rye_? What the hell of a title is that?”

She laughs, unable not to. “I know,” she says, “but believe me, it feels like your thing.”

He checks the other one. “… _Of Mice and Men_?” He asks, shaking his head. “I have a feeling I _should_ have read it in high school, but I don’t remember.”

“Then you don’t need to forget about how much your teacher was terrible at explaining it,” she winks. “Anyway, uh, it’s pretty sad, the last one. The first… not really, I don’t think so. But if you’d rather have anything else —”

“It’s fine,” he says, “I’ll trust you. How much?”

“It’s five each, they’re new,” she says, “but you know what, I’ll give you Steinbeck on the house if it means we gain a new client.”

He raises an eyebrow. “Will you.”

“Sure,” she says. “Let me ring them.”

She does, and watches him leave after slipping them inside his coat pocket, and then she slips five dollars from her own wallet inside the cash register.

She knows she’s smiling.

She can’t bring herself to give a fuck.

— —

Brienne stares at her savings box.

She doesn’t open it, as much as she’d like to, but she can’t just knock on his door and say that hey, she wants to talk and maybe ask him if he liked those books, or at least if he’s liking whichever one he started from. She — she doesn’t do _that_. People don’t want to really discuss _that_ with her, and she has no friends for a reason.

She wishes she had the guts to.

Shit, she’s way over in her head, and she shouldn’t want to, she can’t, except that she wants to, but — no. It’s already pathetic enough that she had to _pay_ to —

She won’t.

— —

That is, until the next morning she wakes up after having had another of those dreams except longer and more detailed and that left her throat dry and her heart beating so fast it threatened to burst out of her chest.

Her father isn’t in town.

That evening, she slips a hundred out of her savings account and heads for Jaime’s house, hating herself as she does, and she reaches it just as a car stops in front of it.

She’s not surprised to see Selyse Florent driving it, and she doesn’t move away from the door just because she knows that Selyse _won’t_ tell she’s here if Brienne won’t. Jaime opens the door a second later, assessing the situation, and from the way Selyse looks at them as she opens the car’s door, Brienne has a feeling she’s a regular or that she got an appointment or _something_ —

“I’m awful sorry,” he says, staring at Selyse, not at _her_ , “but I don’t think I can make it tonight.”

“What,” Selyse protests, “I know I usually come on Mondays, but it’s not like pre-Thanksgiving you have —”

“A line outside the door? No, but she had booked for the entire night,” he said, winking at Brienne, who certainly _has not done so_ , “tomorrow I should be free.”

Selyse huffs and drives away, not pressing it.

Brienne breathes out in relief and goes inside the moment he opens the door.

“I hadn’t booked,” she says, realizing that it sounded ridiculous.

“No,” he agrees, “but let me tell you, if you’re here for business, I’d rather have _you_ over her any day.”

“… You _would_?”

He snorts. “Please. She and her husband were a terrible match but she won’t divorce him because _reputation_ , so she comes here just to talk shit about how terrible he is in bed while I do my job, and I could be… literally anyone. I guess it’s the point, but believe me, _you_ don’t make people feel like pieces of meat regardless of whatever job they chose. So, you here on business?”

“Yes,” she says, handing him _both_ bills.

“I see,” he says, taking them. “And what it is that you would like to do?”

She clears her throat. She knows she’s blushing. She knows she shouldn’t _want_ that. She knows it’s wrong and pathetic and it will just make things worse, but right now she can’t care less.

“Can I hold you down to the bed? While — well. _While_. I mean, if the extra pays for it.”

“ _That_ is not what I charge as extra,” he smirks. “But if I told you that if you wanted to _tie_ me down to the bed I would, and you could definitely afford that with your extra money?”

Brienne’s throat goes dry at once.

“All right,” she says. “Yes. I would like that. Unless you don’t want —”

“I never said I didn’t. The two other rules still apply,” he winks, and Brienne wishes she _could_ kiss him, but he’s right.

You shouldn’t kiss someone you _pay_ to have sex with. You shouldn’t kiss someone who pays you to have sex with them. She can see that maybe he wants to keep that for when it’s real.

She understands it. She does. And so she won’t.

“Good,” she says. “Then yes, I’m here on business.”

The way he looks at her, you’d think he’s _glad_ of it.

— —

She ties him to the bed. She’s pretty damn sure that the entire thing is more for her benefit than his because her technique when it comes to sucking him off is hardly stellar and somehow the first time had run smoother than this one, and he still comes thrice before she undid the knots and left a few hickeys on the hollow of his neck.

“Stop looking like _that_ ,” he says as he massages his wrists.

“How?”

“Like you’ve been a disappointment or _something_. It was far from the worst sex I’ve ever had.”

She laughs. “I should hope,” she says, “but thank you.”

“Wait,” he says, “that was a twenty-five extra. I need to give you —”

“No,” she says, “keep the change. Really. Take it as compensation.”

“… You want to _compensate_ me,” he says. “Shit, you know you’re one of a kind?”

“… Was that a compliment?”

“Christ, how about you learn how to take one?”

She laughs, pulling on her jeans. “It might be hard, but I’ll try, I guess,” she says, and he smiles back just slightly for a moment before his eyes turn sad again.

Brienne would _really_ like to ask.

But she’s not his friend or anything now, is he —

“Wait,” he says as she puts on her coat. He hands her a piece of paper. It’s a landline number.

“Is this —”

“I mean,” he says, “seems to me like you _do_ want it, don’t you? Book, next time.”

“We’ll see,” she replies, and then leaves after pocketing it, and she tells herself she won’t use it, she won’t, she _won’t_ —

— —

Three days later, she calls him.

“Who’s there?” He says, sounding… almost professional.

“Brienne Tarth,” she whispers into the darkness of her own room.

“Oh,” he says, sounding _happy_ that it’s her, or at least not disappointed, “there you are. When did you want to come?”

“Are — are you free tomorrow?”

“It’s _the week after Thanksgiving_ ,” he says, “‘course I’m free, but I’ll make sure to mark it down. See you tomorrow then.”

He closes the call.

She wanted to ask if he’s liking those books.

She has a feeling she never will.

— —

 _Tomorrow_ , she goes at the usual time. She slips him the usual fifty. She holds him down to the bed and he lets her and does nothing as she makes sure that he gets at least another two orgasms out of it even if her technique is still shitty and she knows it is, and at the end, he’s looking at her strangely.

“Let me ask you a question,” he says, “do you look guilty every other time because you regret coming here or because tomorrow you’ll have to go to church or _what_?”

She shakes her head, not quite looking at him. “No. My father, uh, he’s not religious. I’m not either. People thought I was weird as hell until I started lying and said we went to another church in the next town over. I don’t care for that. And no, I don’t regret coming here. It’s just — I always — I hope you don’t feel like I’m just, coming here and — I don’t know, if I do everything you might think it’s because I could be fucking anyone else and I _hate_ that you might feel like that.”

She dares looking at him after. He’s staring at her like she’s just grown another head. “Brienne — you _do_ realize that it’s the exact point? Most people who come here don’t give a fuck about _me_ and none of them give a fuck if I come or not, especially the men. And you think you’re _taking advantage_? Please. I feel like I should give you a damned discount just for giving a shit,” he says, winking, and her stomach turns over as she thinks, _damn but we do have issues, don’t we_.

“That’s… good to hear,” she says, lamely.

She wishes she could _say_ meaningful things, or beautiful ones, the way they’re written in the books she sells, instead of just blurting out her lame, _lame_ replies every time she has to talk to him.

Too bad she never was much for words herself.

— —

Three days later, he drops by the bookshop again.

“How are you liking those books?” She asks after he looks around for a while, not asking anything. “If you are, of course, you might hate them —”

“I’m halfway through _Catcher_ ,” he says, sounding amused, but she can see he looks tired. “I’m — not the fastest around, when it comes to that. But it’s good.”

“Is it?”

“You kind of did nail it,” he says. “I’ll let you know when I’m done. I just, I was wondering if you had anything else for reading advice?”

Brienne thinks about it for a moment, then finds him a copy of _Spoon River’s Anthology_ , figuring that if it’s all short poems it _could_ make him feel somewhat less conscious about not being _fast_. Also, sounds like something he _would_ like.

“… Poetry?” He asks, skimming it.

“It feels like your kind of poetry,” she mutters.

“I’ll trust you with it then,” he says, and hands her a five.

That evening, she calls him and asks if he’s free four days from now, when her father isn’t home.

He is.

— —

Four days later, she’s in the diner, trying to not think about how she dreamed about kissing him for half an hour in the back row of the old movie theater before slipping a hand down his trousers and jerking him off right where anyone could have seen them while he tried his best to keep quiet.

There’s a flyer on the outside — oh.

It says Tywin Lannister is opening a new factory not far from the area. He’s looking to hire.

So _maybe_ that’s because he doesn’t want others to know that his son —

She shakes her head. Tyrion doesn’t look too happy at the flyer’s presence outside the door, either, but she has a feeling it’s being hung all over town.

“Is this why —” She whispers as he hands her the coffee. “If I can ask.”

“Yes,” he sighs. “Obviously. Jaime’s place is… right next to where he should open. I mean, not _that_ much, but he was planning on building a few houses for the new people coming in, so it would be a lot of, you know, _men_. Without wives. With _him_ being right there. Can’t have it if his firstborn is selling dick right next door, sorry to say.”

She nods. “I — no need to apologize.” She drinks her coffee.

“You know,” Tyrion says, “he’s been doing that for years. I don’t know if it’s good for him or not. But — I guess it’s his way to say fuck it to the both of them. I suppose I couldn’t have outdone him.”

“Well, if you need me to, well, scare people away, I’m at the bookshop. I still owe you for that cinnamon roll.”

He laughs, somewhat more sincere than his brother.

“I know,” he says, and then he doesn’t speak anymore, and she finishes her drink before leaving.

— —

In the evening, she pays him one hundred to tie him to the bed again. He smirks and says he was just waiting for it.

She _thinks_ she gives him a slightly less terrible blowjob than the last time. Shit, she’s probably the only person who’s ever paid off anyone to make _them_ come and not for herself, not after the first time, and she doesn’t know what it says about her, but he doesn’t seem to hate it, and it makes _her_ feel somehow better about this entire shitshow, and that’s fine.

That’s _fine_.

— —

She looks at her savings box guiltily the next morning, but unable to regret that she spent them on _him_. She fixes her hair and goes to the diner.

Tyrion slides her another cinnamon roll she didn’t ask for when he comes over to her table and brings her order to her.

“What —” She asks, and he glances at the counter where his friend Bronn is handling the rest, and he looks back at her again after sitting in front of her on the opposite seat.

“I need to ask you a favor,” he says.

“All right,” she agrees.

“Can… can you be around his place this evening? If you don’t have money to book him or _something_ I can give it to you just for my peace of mind, but my father called me before I left for work and he said something fairly… I don’t want to say ominous, but I didn’t like it.”

She nods. “I — I can be there anyway. No need to book appointments.”

“Thanks,” he tells her, sounding relieved. “I feel like shit asking you, but — can’t exactly go and tell the police I’m _concerned_ , never mind that they wouldn’t care.”

“They… wouldn’t?”

He snorts. “You weren’t there for the _one_ time he ended up with the legitimately dangerous client. Never mind. I just hope I’m wrong.”

Brienne isn’t sure he wants to know about _that_.

She tells him she’ll be there.

— —

She feels like a damned creep as she walks down the usual road. It seems darker than usual, right at the edge of town as it is, not counting that he has the only house in the street that’s not abandoned, and not for the first time she wonders how someone like _him_ ended up in that kind of dump, but it’s not for her to know. It’s ten in the evening and there’s a car parked in front of the door. She recognizes Randyll Tarly walking out of the door not long later, not that she’s anywhere near surprised.

She hides in the shadows of the empty house in front of his, and half an hour later another car pulls up. She’s not surprised to see Mace Tyrell get out of it, either.

By the time midnight rolls around, he’s seen four people, three men and one woman who’s definitely a friend of Selyse Florent’s, whose name Brienne has entirely forgotten but who is usually very noisy in wishing that such a _bad_ influence on the young people of this town would just leave.

Yeah, sure.

She tightens the coat around her shoulders, wondering how long is she supposed to stay here, good thing her father’s not home, until another call pulls to the door. Except that it’s a bright red car, enough that she can see it in the faint moonlight.

 _Shit_ , she thinks the moment Cersei walks out of it.

She can’t go there and tell her to leave, though, especially not when no one’s invited her, so rather than doing that she waits for Jaime to open the door and see what happens — he obviously tries to not let her in, but she makes her way in, effectively pushing him back with quite some strength, and Brienne doesn’t like the noise he makes at all.

 _Shit_.

She moves from the abandoned porch of the abandoned house and moves forward, trying to stay silent, but then she hears shouting from inside the house and realizes that they won’t hear her either way.

She walks up the stairs, not going inside, and then she actually hears what they’re saying.

“No,” he about shouts, sounding halfway desperate — _what_? “You can forget it.”

“Jaime, you’re being your usual _stupid_ self and you’ve been for for ten years, don’t you think it’s time to grow up?”

The way she sounds, it makes her skin crawl. Especially because while she’s shouting, she seems to have the higher ground — her voice is not shaking. _His_ , is.

“Oh, sure, because _you_ weren’t the one telling me we’d always be together if I took that fucking job for Aerys without telling me that _you were about to marry Rhaegar_ , huh? Because _you_ didn’t tell me that when you knew perfectly it was going to happen and that I’d have been stuck in Aerys’s fucking publicity detail for my entire life when he’s not in jail for what he did to his wife just because of his damned money?”

 _What the hell,_ Brienne thinks, her blood running cold. Does it mean they were — _they were_ —

“Because _you_ weren’t the one never letting me even _look_ at anyone else?”

“Because that’s —”

“Oh, wait, _I_ should only look at you but you can look at Rhaegar, too? Fuck off.”

“No,” she says. “This ends _now_. Father can’t open that factory right where —”

“What, right were all his clients would pay my bills? Fuck him.”

“Jaime, you _won’t_ —”

“Sure, I should go _commit_ myself in a fucking ward so they can figure out how to make sure I never enjoy having sex with anyone else in my entire damned life if it goes well? I _know_ what happens if I go to a ward. And knowing Father, he probably has already found one that would make sure I’d never _shame_ him again, and like hell I’m going there. I might have fucking issues, but I’m not _that_ suicidal.”

“So you’ll keep on dragging the family name through the mud?”

“I’ve been disowned already,” he spits. Brienne feels like she _should_ go inside, that she can’t let this go on any longer — “So who am I even shaming? Him? You? Are you going to inform the press that I can’t remember the first time I kissed you — or you kissed me, maybe — and I wish every damned day it never happened? That’s what you’re going to —”

He never finishes the sentence. There’s a sound of a slap, loud enough that she reaches her ears, and then something breaks, and Cersei tells him to shut up and stop being such an _idiot_ and to just come back for everyone’s benefit —

Brienne slams the door closed behind her, makes her way through the darkness of the hall and stops on the living room’s entrance —

Jaime is about standing against the wall, but she can see that his fingers are shaking and his eyes are completely unfocused and he’s not looking at her, there’s a shattered glass at his feet and she can see the bruise she left on his face and his bottom lip is swollen because she hit him with a hand that has a fairly heavy ring on it, and when Cersei turns to look at her she looks so angry that for a moment Brienne feels like her knees will give out.

Then she remembers that she has more than a few inches on her and a lot more muscle on her, and that she was angry when she walked through the door and she’s even angrier _now_.

“And who are you?” Cersei shouts in her direction.

“I was passing by,” she says, trying to sound calm. “And he doesn’t look like he wants you here.”

“And how is that your business?”

“I don’t know,” she says, “probably it isn’t, but he obviously didn’t want to come with you and I’m really not up for discussing the details, so either you leave or I’m making you.”

She glances at him. He’s still not even looking at them. _Shit_.

“Oh, _you_ are making me?”

“I was the best football player in this stupid town’s team,” she says, “and I know a few ways to make sure you’d regret not leaving. And of course you could press charges against me, but then you should explain _this_. So, you leaving or should I make sure that you get out without a single sign left on you? Because I can do that.” She smiles. She hopes it’s threatening enough.

“This isn’t over here,” Cersei says, sneering, and then stalks out of the room. Brienne follows her until she can lock the door and she drives away.

Right.

 _Right_.

She breathes in and out, in and out, and then she makes her way back towards the living room.

He hasn’t moved an inch, and he’s still staring down at his hands with an unfocused gaze, and _shit shit shit_ , what does she do now? She has to do _something_ , though, so she moves closer to him, trying to go slow, hating her size because it means that she’s automatically threatening, doesn’t it?

She touches his arm as gently as she can.

“… Jaime?” She asks, trying to keep her voice low. He says nothing, but when she asks again he blinks once, twice, then turns and looks at her, his eyes slightly more focused.

“Brienne?” He croaks a moment later, his voice barely audible.

“Yes,” she nods, her hand going to his other arm, still touching it as gently as she can. “I — I’m sorry, I couldn’t sleep and I was passing by and — what do you need?”

He blinks, shakes his head, and then his knees _do_ give out — she drags him to the sofa, but before she can sit him down his arm goes around her shoulders and he’s holding on to her neck so strongly it hurts, but it’s fine, she can handle that, and so she does the same, feeling that his heartbeat is off the damned charts, and she doesn’t know what she’s doing when she reaches up and runs her hand through his hair, but at that she hears him half-sob against her neck.

“I’m sorry,” she says, immediately stopping.

“For _what_ ,” he blurts, moving away enough to look at her, and for a moment he’s just _staring_ at her and she doesn’t know what to make of it —

And then his mouth is on hers, and for a moment she stands still because it’s not right and he’s not thinking straight and _he doesn’t kiss clients, does he_ —

She moves away, one of her hands moving to his face. “Wait,” she says, “wait, I can’t if you’re — why would you —”

“Brienne,” he says, again, all urgency, and the way he says her name, shit, it’s going to _kill_ her —, “ _Brienne_ , I know what you’re thinking but I swear to whatever the fuck you want me to swear to that I’ve been wanting to do that since the _third_ time you came in through that door, and now you’re — you’ve — if _you_ don’t want to because you’ve just seen what’s happened you’ve got all the damned rights and I’m not going to — I mean, I think you’ve just seen how fucked up things are around here, and I’m what I am but believe me, I know what I want —”

She should say no.

She crashes her mouth against his again, and fuck, she’s never kissed anyone before, and it’s _obvious_ , painfully, fuck, she’s probably better at giving head than _this_ , but he kisses her back and it’s not as urgent as before and his mouth is warm and wet and soft and he’s _kissing her_ , fuck, _fuck,_ and he said he’s wanted to, didn’t he —

“I — I’ve dreamed that I kissed you,” she confesses as they part, and the way he’s smiling at her through that bruised cheek and the mark one of her rings left on his bottom lip makes her heart skip another ten beats.

“Then no one’s stopping you.”

He doesn’t sound so _sure_ now, as he takes in the state of his living room, and she shakes her head. She leans in again, going slower, feeling his hands grasp at her shoulders.

She doesn’t think she’s mastered the art of kissing people in the span of two minutes. It would be ridiculous. But she keeps at it, her tongue running over his lips, slow, figuring it’d hurt otherwise, and when she leans back he’s looking at her like he could cry but for all good reasons, and Brienne doesn’t know what to make of it —

“Come upstairs,” he whispers. “There’s another room. Not the one I use for — you know. Mine. If you want.”

She should say no. He’s not fine. He can’t be fine. But she wants to, and if his sister shows up again she should be here, and if she thinks of what she’s heard and what she had told him and the look on his face when she walked inside the living room, her stomach recoils.

“One condition,” she says, really glad that it’s a Friday and she doesn’t have to go to work tomorrow. “You’re — I don’t want to do anything more than _that_ until tomorrow morning. I can’t. I mean, I _want_ to, but I couldn’t. Not after — that.”

His grin is almost blinding, even under that bruise. “Honorable to a fault, huh? Sure thing. Not until morning. But I doubt I’ll change my mind,” he says, and he sounds like he means it.

“All — all right,” she says, and follows him to his room.

— —

 _His_ room, not the one he uses for business, is smaller and narrower, with a bed in the middle that’s big enough for two people but not as fancy as the one nearby. It has a handmade red and gold quilt that has seen better days and only one pillow. The walls are covered in movie posters — Bogart everywhere except for a few westerns and _Rebel Without a Cause_ , which she doesn’t feel surprised at all about. The shutters are down, and she can see that the books she sold him are on the nightstand. There’s a piece of paper stuck in the middle of _Catcher in the Rye_ along with a pencil, and the first half looks like he’s scribbled inside it for a long, long time.

It’s the entire opposite of that sterile, white room nearby.

She thinks she loves it.

She’s still looking around when he clears his throat and she finds out he took off his shirt — he wasn’t wearing shoes in the first place — and he puts on a pair of comfortable, low pants that show his hip bones.

“So,” he says, raising the covers, “you’re already regretting it?”

He sounds like he _means_ it, though, and it’s obviously not a joke, and so she shakes her head and takes off her own clothes, it’s not as if he hasn’t seen her naked more than once and he _kissed her,_ fuck’s sake.

No one should look this relieved at seeing her take off her clothes, she decides, but as he turns off the light and gets under the covers she does the same, her hands trembling because she wants to touch him _again_ but she knows she shouldn’t, not until —

His own closes on her wrist.

“Don’t you want some ice for —” She asks, seeing that the bruise is getting darker, but he shakes his head.

“No,” he says. “It doesn’t matter. It’s not like anyone cares either way.”

She reaches forward, tentatively, brushing her fingertips over his swollen bottom lip. She feels like shit for not having come in sooner. “What if I do?”

“Congratulations,” he says, his voice coiled with a depreciating tone she flinches at hearing, “then you’d be the second person who’s done that in the last ten years.” He stops, looking down, then up at her again, his mouth slightly parted, and gods, she wants to kiss him again so _bad_ — “You _weren’t_ really just passing by, weren’t you?”

“No,” she admits. “Your brother told me he had a bad feeling. I might have offered him to help out if he wanted your sister to leave the premises once, he took me up on it. I’m sorry, it just — didn’t seem like something you’d care much about, before —”

“Please,” he shakes his head, “so what, it’s just confirmation that he gives a fuck and no one else does. Except you, apparently.” He’s smirking again now, his teeth showing, and gods she wants to kiss him, she _wants to kiss him_ —

She does, once, twice, and then she moves back, still caressing his cheeks, and he closes his eyes, leaning into it, his own hands finding her hips.

“You really — you heard, didn’t you?” He mutters.

“Yeah,” she admits, shaking her head.

“And you don’t care?”

He has his eyes closed. She closes hers, too.

“I care that it seems like she hurt you _that_ much,” she admits in the darkness of his room.

“Can you believe,” he says, low, his voice half-shaking, “that we had been — like that since I can recall, and I don’t remember half of it?”

Brienne’s blood runs cold.

“ _What_?”

“One of the maids caught us at it once. After my mother died giving birth to my brother. She tried to tell my father, but he didn’t believe her and let her go with adequate compensation in case she thought of _slandering_ us. I remember she was horrified. I don’t remember shit of what we actually did. Took me years of doing _this_ to realize that maybe it wasn’t good news, but I’m not sure I want to. Remember, I mean.”

She nods even if he can’t see her. She doesn’t move.

“Wow,” he says, “you’re not packing your bags yet?”

“Lannister, not to spoil your party, but I think I got that you had _issues_ the moment I walked in here and that hasn’t stopped me from dreaming I’d get to kiss you since I knocked on your door.”

He moves closer, and she moves a hand on the back of his neck.

She doesn’t ask for anything, but he still tells her that they had been like _that_ since he could remember and she had always told him that he was her other half and they’d be together forever if he just let her handle things and he just believed her because she had to be right, and he never thought there might be anything wrong with it, and she was always brighter than him at pretty much anything, her grades were better and her reading was better and he was the only one out of the three of them struggling with it and his father hated that because _he_ was supposed to take his place but he never really wanted to run a steel factories empire where the policy was firing anyone who’d show up late thrice, and Cersei only ever bothered to tell him he was good at _anything_ when they fucked, and he couldn’t even conceive the idea of doing it with anyone else until she showed up while he was trying and failing to graduate, saying she was marrying the son of one of his father’s worst business partners and the deal was that he’d have to work in the man’s advertising department —

Except that Jaime remembered that a few years ago they had dined at their mansion and while he was coming back from the bathroom he had heard Aerys’s wife crying locked inside _her_ bathroom and not long later she left him and Jaime remembered the bruises on her arms, too, and that her face was always covered in foundation, and he didn’t want to work for someone like _that_ , and then she said that she couldn’t certainly risk such a marriage for _him_ and so he figured he’s say to hell with it and if _fucking_ was the only thing he was good at according to her he’d make a career out of it and good riddance, and of course they all pretend he’s dead to them now except when it might hurt their business —

“Do you still want to kiss me now after hearing that?” He asks, and now he’s not joking, not at all, not a hint of it.

Brienne finds his face with her hand again, glad that he can’t see her in the darkness or he’d see that she almost cried, hearing all of that.

“Yes,” she whispers, and then she tells him the details of that bet, she tells him about not getting one single scholarship even if she knew she would have come out first in line if she had been a man, she tells him about that time Ronnet Connington bought her roses in third grade just to make fun of her in front of everyone else, she tells him that she’s tired and angry and hates everything but her father and her job and hates that she’s not even twenty-one yet and she already doesn’t see a future in front of her that’s not this rinse and repeat, so what does she know, and it’s not like _she_ doesn’t have issues, so why would she _not_ want to kiss him —

He closes her mouth with his.

She lets him.

They don’t do anything else but she keeps her arms around him, and when during the night he stirs and says _no_ under his breath she kisses the side of his head until he stops.

— —

The morning after, the pale sun is filtering through the shutters.

The right side of his face is still sporting that dark bruise, but he’s smiling up at her when she wakes and finds herself half on top of him, his hands reaching up for her hair.

“So,” he says, “it’s been one night, I’ve slept on it and I haven’t changed my mind. Have you?”

She kisses him then, once, twice, pushing him gently into the mattress and the pillow, her blood rushing downwards, feeling his own heart beating fasterfaster _faster_ and oh, it’s so much _better_ if they kiss, and now that she can she doesn’t know if she can hold back, and by the time they’ve parted for breath she has her knees around his hips and and his eyes are bright green again and he looks so pleased with it —

“Shit,” he says, “you really have a lot of that anger locked up inside you, huh?”

“I’m not angry at _you_ ,” she says, shaking her head. “I couldn’t — I _wouldn’t_ —”

“I know,” he says, “I _know_ , don’t you think that’s also why — never mind. I used the wrong word.” He smirks wider. “ _You_ , Brienne,” he says, “have been holding back your entire life, haven’t you? Except when it came to getting your scholarship.”

“So what if I have?” She admits, not even trying to lie. She has a feeling he’d see right through her.

“I never said you had to hold back _here_ , and you actually did all the times you paid for it.”

“Did I?”

“It was obvious. And kind of adorable, but it was. I think,” he says, moving up on his elbow, his other hand touching her face as if it’s an _attractive_ face and not hers, “that you want to be _wild_ and you don’t know how to do it, and if you want to you might have a lot to learn, but I never said I _wasn’t_ willing to go there with you. Also,” he says, his voice dropping, “don’t you dare come back here with money, all right?”

She doesn’t — she _can’t_ —

She shakes her head, takes his face between her hands and kisses him again, and again, and _again_ , and he lets her, and this time he tells her where to touch and where to put her mouth when she says she wants to suck him off again, and he lets her hold him down against the bed while he moans into her mouth and she kisses him all the time as they fuck, once, twice, and by the time the sheets are soiled and she’s lost the track of time, he’s looking at her with those bright green eyes that aren’t so sad anymore, and she knows that even if people see her walking out of here and decide to come to conclusions, she can’t give a single, lone fuck about it.

TBC


	2. take a knife and cut this pain from my heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which they go on a couple of dates.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HEEEY AGAIN have fun with These Two Assholes Trying To Navigate Healthy Relationships. See you next time with ACTUAL UPPING THE ANTE WITH THE PORN. ;)

“Will you call?” He asks as she puts her clothes back on.

She almost drops her shirt to the ground.

“I — sure,” she says, putting it back on. He’s not quite looking at her. “Why wouldn’t I?” She asks, sitting back on the bed.

“I don’t know, I — maybe you’ll regret it when you go back home, maybe you’ll realize it’s not worth the hassle, maybe you’ll see the light, I _don’t know_ —”

“Jesus,” she interrupts him, “ _please_ , I don’t — oh, fuck, there’s no nicer way to put it. I — I _paid_ to get _you_ off, and it wasn’t — I mean, I couldn’t have done that with anyone else. I wanted _you_ , not some random other hot person. Are you seriously telling me I’ll go back home and regret it?”

He looks up at her. His eyes look half-wet, and she wants to take his face in her hands again but she knows she’ll never leave if she does —

“You know,” he said, “I — the no kissing thing, it was the second rule I put up. After the condoms.”

“… And?”

“I — you’re here feeling ashamed that you paid for your first time, I can feel it, but I can tell you that I never kissed anyone that wasn’t Cersei in my entire life and I lost count of how many people I _fucked_. Don’t, okay? Don’t. I don’t think anyone’s ever wanted _me_ , for that matter.”

Fuck that.

She kisses him again, and again, and then she tells him she’ll call and she wants to know if he does like those books, after all, and he’s smiling as she leaves his room behind.

— —

She calls him that evening. He says he has people over for the next two days, but Tuesday she can come over. She’s smiling as she says yes.

On Monday morning, there’s another cinnamon roll that she never ordered on her plate and Tyrion joins her at her table again.

“You don’t have to —” She starts, looking at the pastry.

“Brienne,” he says, “I’ll be very brief. My brother has looked at himself or at most things like someone who hates that he’s _existing_ in the first place for ten years. If he had any dreams once, I don’t think he’s had them for years. I went at his place yesterday. To check on things.”

“… And?”

“And he didn’t look like he hated himself and the world when he was talking about _you_ , never mind that I never thought he’d ever even come close to have a semblance of, like, a somewhat healthy connection with _anyone_ at this point, so forgive me if I think the cinnamon roll is a good trade for that. I never thought I’d see him be… _somewhat_ like that again. Don’t protest the cinnamon roll, please.”

“All right,” she says, not protesting it. “But — well. I mean, the reverse is valid. Pretty much.”

“Well, you won’t find _me_ disagreeing with it. Enjoy your breakfast,” he says, and slides off the seat.

Brienne eats the cinnamon roll and if she’s smiling slightly as she does, well, no one can blame her.

— —

She goes to work. She waits two days. She quietly slides out of her front door at ten thirty PM when everyone else has gone to sleep already, or is pretending, and her heart is beating so fast it almost hurts as she walks up to Jaime’s door and knocks on it.

For a moment, she wonders if he’ll regret it —

Then he opens the door and he grins at her, blinding enough that she almost loses her footing, and she’s kissing him the moment she slams the door behind her, and only when they can’t breathe anymore she moves back and sees that the bruise might be fading but he has new ones on his collarbones and she wants to ask what happened —

“Hazards of the job,” he shrugs. “A few people in here are way more repressed than you ever could have been.”

She shakes her head. “I hope they paid extra.”

“Sure as hell they did, I _do_ charge it. Not to you, though,” he adds, as if he sounds overjoyed himself that he _can_ not charge extra to someone, and before she knows it they’re back in his room, the small, cozy one with pictures on the wall and her books being dissected on the nightstand and the old vinyl player.

“You know,” he says as she sits on the bed, “you were right. About _Catcher in the Rye_ at least.”

“… Was I?”

“I mean, I still need to finish and all, but — it _is_ my kind of thing. I guess if only —”

“But is there a reason why you’re _not as fast_ as you’d like or you just like to take your time?”

He shakes his head. “No. I just, it’s _weird_. I don’t see letters the way I should,” he admits. “I mean, Tyrion figured it out, but I just, read things when they aren’t there. And sometimes they just… seem to move on page. Which is why I write like shit. And just because my father pretty much sat me down and forced me to figure it out.”

He’s not quite looking at her.

“I mean,” he shrugs, “there’s a reason she’s… not wrong. I guess.”

“About _what_?”

“About what I can hope to be good at,” he says, and then shakes his head. “Shit, why am I even telling you this, I spend weeks trying to figure out a way to _tell you_ and then I just —”

Oh.

She thinks she gets it, and she hates that he can’t seem to realize that she’s come to give a damn about _him_ and not just about how good he is at sex, and oh, maybe if he wants more then this is just sad and she could do better, they could do better, and so she stops him, moving a hand to his wrist.

“Hey,” she says, “my, uh, my father is out, next weekend. I — what if I drive us somewhere?”

“… Wait, what?”

“I do have a car, even if I don’t really use it much. Unless it means you lose business, I — we could go to Atlantic City or somewhere that’s not _here_ and get lunch or do _something_ that… everyone else does. Instead of reminding ourselves of all the reasons why we have, uh, issues.”

“You want to —”

“Well, I mean, I _could_ get you breakfast at your brother’s place, but something tells me neither of us wants everyone in this damned place to know that we’re… doing this. We _are_ doing this, aren’t we?” She asks, suddenly afraid she’s misread everything — what if she’s going too fast, what if he hadn’t meant what _she_ had meant, _what if_ —

He grabs her hand, hard enough that it hurts, and when he looks at her again his eyes are wet and he’s biting down on his lower lip, and when he asks, “Are you serious?”, he doesn’t sound as if he’s joking.

“Yes,” she nods. “I mean, I wouldn’t have asked if I wasn’t. Are you all right? I mean, I didn’t want to go too fast —”

“When was the last time you think anyone asked me that question?” He interrupts her.

“… In high school?” She tries, figuring that _someone_ must have.

He laughs. It sounds bitter.

“Never,” he says. “The one time a friend of my sister’s made clear she _liked_ me, she _moved towns_ for how much Cersei made her life hell. You’re the first.”

Oh.

 _Oh_.

On one side she should feel moderately happy that she’s not the only fish out of water here, but he sounds so _sad_ about it —

“All right,” she says, “we can go someplace nice in the weekend and we can find the nearest suitable diner _now_?”

“… Wait, are you serious?”

“Yeah,” she nods, and she thinks he looks the way _she_ felt when they asked her out the first time when she didn't realize it was to make fun of her, and when he says yes he sounds like he barely believes it.

She tells him to wait and kisses him before running out of the door and getting her car.

— —

Now, Brienne’s car once was her father’s, and it already was second-hand when he was using it, so now it’s holding up together because she’s learned to fix cars herself and she takes extra good care of it. It’s old, it’s a non-flattering black, the right back door is broken and won’t open and it’s really not that great, but the moment he gets in the passenger seat he doesn’t seem to give a damn — she tells him to pick the music and is delighted when he pushes in a Rolling Stones tape, and she speeds up on the highway as she heads out of the county. They end up stopping two counties over at some diner in the middle of the highway that doesn’t look completely shitty, and she notices that his eyes _do_ stick to the pancakes option before he tells her he’ll have a turkey sandwich.

He doesn’t sound _too_ excited about that, even if he sounds excited about being here in the first place.

The waitress shows up — she’s definitely older than either of them and has the dead eyes of someone who wanted any other job but got stuck here for life.

He opens his mouth.

“We’re both having pancakes,” she says before he can order.

“With fruit, whipped cream, ice cream…?” The waitress asks, tiredly.

“All,” she goes on. “On both portions.”

“On it,” she says, and Brienne hopes she hasn’t overstepped, but Jaime is looking at her with something like wonder instead.

“How did you guess?”

“You stared at that option for a good ten seconds,” Brienne says. “And — you know, some sugar won’t kill you once in a while.”

“Maybe not,” he sighs. “But let’s just say that my father was the kind of person who didn’t let any in the house.”

“ _What_?”

“It’s _unhealthy_ ,” he snorts, “so we never really had any, and — well. You’ve _seen_ my trade. Can’t indulge now, can I?” He shrugs. “But I really did want it. So — good thing you noticed, I guess,” he says, and his hand is touching hers, and she’s about to faint, she thinks.

“Having them _once_ won’t kill you. Neither will it kill _me_. And your father is an asshole,” she says. “I mean, I’m hardly _not_ fit and I got ice cream every week when I was a kid. Didn’t hurt me now, did it?”

“No,” he admits, still looking at her like he somehow can’t believe she’s real and _it does not add up_ , and so she reaches out and covers her hand with his, threading their fingers together, and he squeezes them back until the waitress brings them the pancakes — they definitely believe into giving people what you pay for. It’s six for each of them, there’s both whipped cream _and_ vanilla ice cream on the side and they’re covered in both strawberries and blueberries. She pays for them when the waitress presents Jaime the check, but to her credit she just shrugs and takes her money.

They’re not the best pancakes she’s ever had in her life, admittedly — it’s obvious someone made them mid-afternoon and not _fresh_ and the ice cream and whipped cream are maybe a tad to sweet —, but the fruit is fresh and the moment he eats a piece with both whipped cream and ice cream piled on it and stuffs it in his mouth his eyes light up as if it’s the best thing he’s ever eaten in his life and she doesn’t say she’s had better. She can just find a better place next time.

( _Or she could_ make _him some. Soon._ )

“So,” she says, in between bites. “Are we doing decently enough for it being our first date and all in _each_ sense of the word?”

“Oh,” he says, blinking in a way that’s everything but innocent, “I’m as far as I got in years from that shithole we live in, I’m not paying for the nicest food I’ve had lately, I’m sitting in front of someone I actually _do_ want to date, why would I have one thing to complain about?”

She knows she’s blushing at hearing it, but then he squeezes her hand tighter.

“Hey,” he says, “I know how it sounds and I know you might not believe me, but —” He shakes his head, eats some more. “Okay, listen, you heard me and Cersei. I — until we were a thing, I _always_ thought — _she_ was everything I’d ever want. I mean, looks-wise. Because — I never considered anything else. Except that I’ve fucked enough people since I left her to realize that it was just because I never _let_ myself consider anything else.”

“… And the conclusion was that —”

He grins wider. “I like people taller than me,” he says, leaning closer. “ _Stronger_ than me, for that matter. I like muscles. I don’t really care for _curves_ on women.”

Oh. _Oh._

“And,” he says, his voice dropping lower, “while I won’t say no to men, I mean, it’s business and I’ve occasionally been into some of them, I tend to prefer women. _Vastly_.”

Brienne almost chokes on her strawberries.

“You mean that —”

“I mean that the moment you knocked on my door, I couldn’t believe my own damned luck and I was thinking that at least for once I wouldn’t have to fake it.”

The idea that someone didn’t have to _fake it_ while being with her makes her head spin, almost, but it’s obvious he means it, and it’s obvious he _did_ want her, and it’s obvious he _does_ want her —

“Okay,” she says, swallowing her ice cream. “Then can I just ask — I mean, what I asked you to do. After the first time. Did you like it or you’d have rather done something else, because I didn’t really —”

“Oh, because I suggest _every_ client that doesn’t think about it first to tie me up if they feel like it?” He’s smirking now, openly, and Brienne thinks she might faint —

“I asked because I was hoping you’d take me out of it. Doesn’t happen too often that I get paid to get exactly what I want in bed now, does it?”

Her throat goes dry at once. “Wait, if _that_ was it… I don’t think it happens very often?”

“With women? Not really. With men? More often.”

“So you’re — you almost never —”

“Do what I want in there?” He shakes his head. “There’s a reason why _you_ got invited into my own room and everyone else stays in that other one, Brienne.” He cuts off another piece of pancake, then stuffs it in his mouth. “So,” he grins, “have I satisfied your lingering doubts about this entire ordeal?”

He sounds amused, but also like he wholly means it. Brienne thinks she’s in love, but she won’t tell him that _now_.

“Yeah,” she says, “you might have. Fancy stopping at the next motel over after we finish eating?”

“I thought you’d never ask,” he exhales, his smile so bright she feels blinded, and as _sad_ as this entire situation might seem from the outside, she decides that it really doesn’t feel like that.

Not at all.

— —

The only good thing the nearest motel has going for it is that the sheets are clean. The rest is _not_. Then again, good thing they only need the bed. She locks the door and then they’re kissing all over again, his hands grasping her breasts under her shirt, her knees around his hips, but she wants to take it slow now. They’re not in a hurry, there’s no money involved in _this_ , and fuck, fuck, she wants to —

“What do you want?” She asks, her hands running over his hips.

He stares at her. “Sorry?”

“What do _you_ want?” She repeats. “I mean. I guess we do want the same things, when it comes down to it. I know what it is that _I_ want, but — we’ve done that already. I — I want to know what it is that _you_ would like.”

For a moment, he looks completely taken aback. Then he lets out a small laugh, but it’s not… happy. “Shit,” he says, “guess what, can’t remember the last time they asked me such a thing either.”

“Then tell me,” she whispers, and she doesn’t know what to expect —

“Kiss me again?” He asks, and she does, slow, on his mouth and along his cheek and down his neck, groaning when his hands reach into her hair and grasp at it. She presses his hips into the mattress as she moves down and down, kissing her way down his chest, stopping just below his navel, and he moans her name as she runs her tongue over his dick once, twice, and then she asks him to _tell her_ what he wants to do already if there’s something he likes more than what she had more or less guessed the other times, and he tells her to touch his balls too while she sucks him off, and she _does_ , and when he comes inside her mouth with his hands grasping at the sheets and screaming her name she feels like she used to just after winning one of her games in school, just _better_ because that led nowhere and only gave her the illusion that she could do better than her current life while this, _this_ is making her feel like she made him happy at least, _and_ she enjoyed the hell out of it, so… it’s a win either way. Her fingers go to his knees, rubbing across the top.

“You haven’t —” He starts.

“Oh, I think I will soon,” she shakes her head. “What else do _you_ want now?”

He looks surprised that she asked again, but then he licks his lips and she can see him staring at her hands, and —

He parts his lips. His legs are halfway spread already. He spreads them more.

Could it be that —

She slips a couple of fingers inside his mouth. He licks them, once, twice, until they’re moist, and he moans when she slips them out of his lips and inside his ass — she does it slow, asking him if it’s fine and spitting some more on them until she has them deep inside him and he’s arching his hips upwards and he’s getting harder, and oh, but it makes her blood boil to see him like _this_ because of what she’s doing to him, and so she pushes her fingers in deeper as he says _yes_ and _fuck_ and _Brienne_ all over, and she leans down and kisses him again as her other hand strokes his cock until he comes on her fingers. and then she wipes them clean on the bed before cupping his face and kissing him again, until he tells her that he wants to taste her, too, and so she kneels on his face and lets him bury his face inside her legs.

He takes his time, she can’t help noticing — he goes slow, his tongue lapping at her clit, then slipping inside her before licking its way across her cunt, all of it, and it’s not long before she’s screaming his name and he’s still savoring her slowly, his hands grasping at her hips, and when she comes he doesn’t move his head and she can feel his throat moving up and down as he swallows before he licks her cunt clean all over again, and she _does_ notice that he’s leaning into her touch as she runs her hands through his hair, keeping his head in place without pushing _that_ much.

When she moves away, he almost makes a displeased noise.

Oh.

She lies down on the sheets, moving closer again, her fingers going back to petting his hair, and he lets out a pleased sound as he wraps an arm around her waist.

“Hey,” she tells him, “I paid for the entire night. I need to be at work at nine, but we can just leave in the morning and I can drop you at home before I get there? If you’d rather spend it here. Your room is nicer, admittedly.”

“Might be,” he says, “but I don’t particularly like anything else in the same house.” He moves closer. “We still up for Atlantic City or whatever in the weekend?”

“Sure,” she says. “Unless it means business —”

“Who cares,” he says. “I can survive one evening without _business_. Now don’t move, I need to make sure of something.”

“Okay…?” She asks, not moving, and he moves his head on her shoulder, pulling her closer.

“Hm, I was right,” he grins.

“… About what?”

“That you’d be extremely comfortable,” he says. “I couldn’t try it out _after_ though, could I?”

She snorts, tells him that she has nothing against it and moves an arm around his waist, too.

— —

The next morning, she stops at the same diner they got pancakes at. He stares at them longingly again, she orders them for both again.

When she drops him at home, it’s eight-something and he looks entirely too well-rested for someone who slept as little as she did.

“See you on Saturday?” He asks, looking delighted at the prospect.

“Sure,” she says, “but if you want to drop at the bookshop, no one will mind.”

“You know what, maybe I will,” he says, and kisses her briefly before running out of the door.

She smiles all the way back to work.

— —

“You know,” he tells her three days later, walking into the shop when no one’s there, “maybe I need you to give me more books.”

“Why,” she smiles, “are you done with all of them?”

“I didn’t start the poetry one,” he admits, “but I might have stayed up the entire night when I didn’t have clients for _Mice and Men_.”

“So you _did_ like it?”

“What if I told you I cried at the end?”

Huh. His eyes do look red-rimmed. “You wouldn’t be the only one who did,” she tells him. “Really.”

“Well, they were good. What if I want to expand my horizons some more?”

“Hm,” she says, “if you like Steinbeck I don’t know if you want to go for the _long_ ones first —”

“Maybe let me work up to them?”

“Well, I also didn’t want to hand you something _even more_ sad. Huh. Wait a moment.”

She heads for the _S_ section. She wonders for a moment if it’s too soon or if he might read it wrong, but — oh, fuck it all. She grabs both the only copies left of _Cannery Row_ and _Sweet Thursday_ , wiping dust off the covers, and then slides them over to him.

“These might be your thing, too.”

“I’ll trust you,” he grins back, and pays her the five bucks she asks for both. Then — “See you on Saturday,” he winks, and leaves the shop.

Brienne’s heart doesn’t slow down for the next twenty minutes.

— —

She _does_ tell her dad that maybe she might be seeing someone and whether he knows where they could go in Atlantic City if she drives them there for the weekend.

He sends her a _look_ , then asks her if she’s sure about this guy, he’s satisfied that she is and tells her the names of a few nice restaurants and hotels without fleas in them, and asks if he might get to meet this guy at some point.

“I hope so,” she says. “I hope so.”

On Saturday, she drives quietly to the corner of his place and he’s out of there with a duffel bag slung over his shoulder and into the passenger seat seconds later.

“What,” she laughs as he gets in the car, “you had been waiting?”

“What if I had been? Hey, I haven’t been farther than that fucking motel in years, let me be excited.”

“Far from me to stop you,” she says, and turns on the radio as she drives forward.

— —

They go for a stroll on the Boardwalk before heading for the nice restaurant her father assured her had great fish. His fingers tremble when he reaches down and holds her hand as they make their way through it, and she squeezes it back, wondering if this is how it feels for people who’ve started doing this at fifteen and never stopped, and from the way he looks at her he’s thinking the same thing. She keeps her fingers twined with his until they reach the restaurant, but they sit on the beach before going in. He says he used to go to the sea with his family until his mother died and his father decided it was a waste of time. She thinks maybe next time they should just plan to do _this_ , if there is a next time,

The restaurant is good — he insists on splitting the bill and she agrees, the fish is good, the one glass of wine they get is pretty decent, and by the time they get to the hotel she’s positively giddy and he is, too.

This time, the hotel is _nice_. It has lavender under the pillows, you can smell the sea if you open the window, it doesn’t look barely cleaned in the corners and the ceiling isn’t covered in spider’s webs.

She notices he has _Spoon River_ in the pocket of his coat as he takes it off.

“So,” she says, noticing that he seems a bit tense for the first time since they met up, “anything you’d like to do?”

He swallows, visibly, as he takes off his shoes.

“Maybe,” he says, “but what about you?”

“I’m down with anything,” she replies, “but — come on, you look off. Is there something I could do?”

He looks down at his feet. “I, uh. I was wondering if — I mean, it’s not that I _don’t_ want to, but —”

“Jaime,” she interrupts him, and he stop and looks at her with the face of someone who feels ashamed of asking for something and she’d really like to know what it is about, and then she realizes that he usually has half of his clothes off at this point. She thinks of how his hands were shaking before, of how his shoulders went more rigid as he stepped into the elevator, how his smile stopped reaching his eyes, and she thinks she’s realized what’s the point.

“You know,” she says, “we _don’t_ have to fuck if you don’t want to.”

From the way his eyes widen, she can see she’s right.

“I — how the _hell_ did you —”

“You didn’t look too eager to lose clothes,” she says, kicking off her shoes. “And you know, you’re allowed to not be in the mood.”

He breathes out. “It’s just — Cersei was around this afternoon. She doesn’t know about _this_ , but — every damned time she implies that it’s the only reason anyone might want to hang around me and I know it’s ridiculous but then I realized that it’s not like there has been times I _haven’t_ had sex in the last ten years or so unless it was an evening without clients or I was hanging out with Tyrion, and I just —”

“You know that if you want to spend the next ten hours reading it’d be _fine_?”

“Would it? Not that I have books with except the poetry one, but —”

“I do like _you_ , you know,” she says, inching closer to him, and the fact that he seems to have to _think_ before answering that says all. “Also, I’ve spent twenty years going without, I can survive.”

He clears his throat. “That — never mind. I know it’s fucked up that I might just want to see how it feels to _not_ have sex for once, but —”

“You’re talking to the person who _paid_ to lose her virginity. And maybe you could tell me why you liked _Of Mice and Men_ that much.”

“Why not the other one?”

She raises an eyebrow. “Excuse me if when I gave you a book about a college student who hates his family except his little sister who also swears every other moment I figured it might be your thing for _obvious_ reasons.”

“Oh, so it’s not as obvious when it comes to the other one? I’m wounded,” he snorts, but he looks more relaxed now, which is what she had been hoping for.

“I don’t know, there are reasons why I thought you’d like that, too. Still, you _do_ discuss this shit on dates, you know. Or at least that’s what I figured from the one friend I have who actually _does_ go on dates.”

He glances down at the lilac sheet covering the both of them. “I don’t — I mean, I was terrible at _that_ in high school.”

“I’m not asking you for literary analysis,” she tells him. “There’s no smart or stupid reason for _liking_ a book, come on.”

“Fine, _fine_ ,” he says, leaning fully against the wall. “It’s just… when you start, you kind of _know_ that they’re fucked. I mean, it’s obvious. No way they can get their farm. Or at least that’s what you get from the get-go, but then he’s… well, good enough that he makes you buy for a while that they _will_ get the farm and a few friends to go with it, and considering that, uh, most characters in that book obviously want some companionship, I mean, I’d like to think I could guess that considering that my damn job is providing it to people in the same conditions, it’s… nice? I mean, he writes in such a way that you assume that maybe you were wrong in the beginning and they’ll actually get the damned fucking farm. And then it goes to shit and you can’t even be angry with the asshole’s wife because you _know_ she’s also desperate for someone to give a fuck about her, they’re back where they started except _worse_ and it couldn’t have ended in any other way and you’re sitting there marveling at how shitty things are, then you remember that they’re pretty much shit now, too, and — I don’t even know what I’m aiming at here. And I haven’t even answered the right question. I mean, you asked why I liked it, right?”

“I did, but hearing you rant wasn’t too bad, either.”

“Seriously?”

“Hey, you really were into it. Far from me to find it _bad_ to be passionate about things.”

“Hilarious. Wait, why do _you_ like it?”

“Who says _I_ do?”

“Oh, you gave me _three_ books from the same author, if you hated him you wouldn’t have.”

“… Can’t disagree,” she snorts. “Well, it’s not my favorite of his or anything, but I thought it was a good story. And — I mean, I hated that it ended like that but it kind of had to, you were right before. But — that’s pretty much how things went back in the day. Not that it changed much. It wouldn’t have felt as honest if they did get the farm, even if we were rooting for them. There, and what’s _your_ dirt?”

He shrugs, then looks at her. “I couldn’t hate most of the people in it. I mean, Curley’s an asshole and fine, but everyone else? How do you hate any of them? Even his wife. You can’t. And I generally don’t… engage with people I _like_ nor read anything full of people I _can_ like. And — well. Even if we all know that the whole thing with the farm is a dream that’s never going to come true the… author doesn’t make fun of them for actually buying into it but just wants to tell you that they deserved it but couldn’t get it because the world sucks. Not _them_. Shit, that doesn’t make sense, does it?”

It does, Brienne thinks. _It actually does_ , and she has to clear her throat before she puts her hand on his wrist.

“It does,” she says quietly. “This is the part where I tell you that my farm was getting a scholarship that’d bring me anywhere else and I didn’t. I imagine you had a farm, too?”

He laces his fingers with hers.

“How do you know that?”

“You wouldn’t be _that_ worked up over theirs if you didn’t.”

“You know how my father is.”

“… Sadly I do. What about it?”

“I saw him hiring and firing people on a whim since I was born. And I thought it wasn’t right. I also saw him treat my brother like shit since _he_ was born. And I hated it. So I thought that maybe when I could study I’d… become the kind of lawyer you always see in movies who’ll take cheap cases to defend people because it’s the right thing to do, you know? Then it turns out I’m shit at _reading_ and anyway it’s not like he’d have even paid for it.”

 _Oh_.

His voice sounds resigned, the same way hers does when she talks about her scholarships.

“So,” he goes on, “I guess it was relatable. Somehow.”

“You know,” she says, putting an arm around his shoulders, “it’s a _nice_ farm to dream about.”

“… Seriously?”

“Come on, you wanted to help people. It _is_.”

“Yeah, well, turns out that it’s not my mind I’m helping them with,” he blurts, and it sounds so _sad_ she has to hug him instead of just hovering around him awkwardly, and she breathes in relief when he holds her back, their bodies pressed together, except that this time they’re clothed and she doesn’t feel the need to change the situation.

“Too bad,” she whispers into the darkness of the room, “I _do_ like your mind, too.”

“Flatterer,” he blurts against her shoulder.

“No,” she says, kissing the side of it. “No, I _really_ do.”

He makes a noise she can’t pinpoint before moving closer as she kisses his hair again, just that, and she feels him relax against her chest, and she realizes she never shared a bed with anyone like _this_ , and it feels — good.

It feels _good_.

— —

The next morning, she wakes up at sunset. The room is bathed in soft, coral pink light, and it makes his hair look positively golden, touching it gently, and she thinks she could have stared at him for the entire morning when he blinks his own eyes open. They look so bright and so green as they meet hers, and she doesn’t think anyone’s ever looked so happy to see her in her life, not counting her father, maybe, and when he leans in to kiss her she parts her mouth for him at once.

“Do you want to —” He asks, nodding at her waist.

She shakes her head. She _could_ , but yesterday’s message was clear enough and she doesn’t _need_ it.

“No,” she says, “but you know what, we could go take a bath.”

“… In the ocean?”

She shrugs. “I don’t know if you noticed, but this hotel has an enclosed piece of beach. We’ve paid until midday. We can do that. It’s six in the morning anyway, who’s going to notice?”

“It’s _December_ ,” he says.

“If it’s freezing we can just go back up.”

Turns out, neither of them can manage farther than their calves, but he doesn’t look worried anymore when they go back to get breakfast.

“Maybe we should come back in the summer,” he says, sipping his coffee, flashing that grin at her again.

“We definitely should,” she agrees, and she thinks she might _not_ be blushing for some miracle.

“Do you have to be home at some specific point tonight?” He asks her later, as they go back to the Boardwalk.

“Not really. Why?”

He shrugs. “I have some three clients lined up. None of which I’m too eager to see. Do you think you’re up to the task of giving me something to think about while I’m on shift?”

On one side, she shouldn’t like how carefree he is about it.

On the other —

“Where, in my car? Because we have that bed for another two hours —”

“Oh,” he grins, “your car sounds good.”

— —

Three hours later, they’re parked in the middle of nowhere, she’s leaning in the passenger seat that she’s brought all the way back and he has his head in between her legs, and if a cop finds them it’s _not_ going to be fun, but then again she doubts any cop has passed by this specific place lately, and so she groans and says _yes_ as he licks at her clit all over again, her fingers running through his hair —

“Oh, wow, this — this feels so _good_ ,” she blurts when he draws it out and she’s so close she could explode with it. She feels ridiculous, he must know that, but he stops for a moment instead, leans back —

“Does it?” He asks.

“Yeah,” she croaks, and then he goes back to it, with twice the enthusiasm, and shit but when he finally buries his head further inside and slips his tongue inside her once, twice, and she finally comes while trying not to scream, she feels him smile against her flesh, and wait, _wait_ —

“Get in the back,” she breathes, and he manages without moving the handbrake, and the moment he’s laying on the seat she manages to get on top of him — she stops for one moment just to make sure they don’t crash on the car’s pavement because the seat is too small, and then she breathes and opens up his jeans and puts a hand on his dick. He’s hard, painfully so, and he’s looking up at her with bright green eyes even if outside it’s getting dark already, fuck short winter days, and she gathers up her guts and looks down at him.

“All right,” she says, “you want something to think about when you’re _on shift_?”

“What about that?” He grins.

“Right. Tell me what you’d want me to do that we haven’t… done yet.”

“You mean —”

She gives his cock a stroke, two, three.

“I want to hear,” she says, “ _exactly_ _everything_ you’d like for us to do next time.”

He groans. “Maybe — I want you to tie me to the bed again.”

“Something I _don’t_ know,” she grins, slowing her pace down.

“Shit,” he groans, “ _shit_ , uh, I thought — could you take me against the wall?”

“You’ve thought about it?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he nods, and she strokes him faster.

“I could,” she says, “I think I could.”

“Oh, _fuck_ —”

“What else?”

“Sometimes — shit, shit, sometimes some of the guys coming in, uh, they —”

“Yes?” She slows down again.

“They ask me to put on a dress,” he groans. “All of those times it’s — well. They’re on a power trip.”

“All right. And?”

“Sometimes I thought I might not hate it,” he says, and oh, _what did he just imply,_ “if it wasn’t a power trip.”

“So you want me to take you against the wall _while_ you’re wearing a dress?” Shit, her blood is running hot at the sheer thought.

He nods. He doesn’t _say_ it.

She speeds up her pace a bit. “As long as it’s not a _power trip_ ,” she adds.

“Yes,” he groans.

“I hate power trips,” she shakes her head, leaning down. He’s so hard against her palm, he’ll come shortly if she doesn’t time it. She doesn’t know if she can.

“So if it’s not a power trip _how_ should it be?”

“However you like,” he says. Not the entire truth, though. She can hear it.

“No,” she shakes her head, “it’s not the point. It should be however you like. If it doesn’t have to be a power trip then you don’t want anyone treating you like shit, do you?”

“No,” he moans. His throat is working up and down, fast, and she knows he’s close.

She thinks about it for a moment.

Oh.

 _Oh_.

“Maybe you want the _contrary_?”

He moans louder. “What if I do?”

She knows she’s blushing harder than ever, but she started it and she’s going to finish — “So other than _that_ you want me to tell you — how _good_ you’d be at it while I fuck you?”

The way he arches up against her hand, she knows she doesn’t need an answer — she gives him another stroke, two, three, and then he’s spilling all over her hand while he crashes his mouth against hers and she jerks him off through it, and she’s pretty sure that it’s a good thing her underwear is in the front seat because if it wasn’t it’d be soaked right now.

He takes deep breaths as he comes down from it, his face covered in sweat, his eyes closed, and she moves so that they’re sharing the backseat and she’s not crushing him. “So,” she says into the silence, “what color would you like that dress to be? Unless you want to pick in the first place.”

He slams his eyes open. “Wait, you were serious?”

“Sure,” she says. “Also, it’s not like I didn’t think it was — hot as hell, the moment I pictured it.”

He opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again. “No, you choose. I think blue would be nice.”

“Duly noted,” she smiles, and she can see that he doesn’t look too happy at the prospect of going back home.

“Hey,” she says, “we _can_ do this more often, you know.”

He smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “On one side, I think that I could get too adjusted to it. On the other, fuck it. We should. Maybe after Christmas.”

Oh. Christmas is in three weeks, isn’t it. “Uhm, not to pry, but —”

“Please,” he shrugs, “worst time of the year. No customers, they all come back next month, my brother has to go to the family celebrations so _he_ doesn’t get completely disinherited and so he shows up on the next day with the leftover alcohol, which is good, but that’s about it. And everyone is about how it’s the happiest day _ever_ and I’ve hated it since before my mom died anyway.”

“… And I thought spending it alone with my father was sad.”

“Believe me, it’s not. Anyway, sure. After Christmas I’m absolutely game for more sneaking out. And — well, that worked.”

“You mean —”

“I’ll _absolutely_ spend my evening thinking about you nailing me against the wall next time, Brienne.”

She laughs, and they don’t move back to their seats for a while, not until they have to.

— —

She drops him off two blocks from his place at his insistence. “Well, good shift to me,” he says, and the smile doesn’t reach his eyes again. “And, uh, it was — good. We really should do it again.”

“Whenever you want,” she says, feeling completely inadequate as he leans in and kisses her cheek before darting off the car towards his place.

Well, shit.

Now she has to find him a dress _and_ a damned Christmas present, because there’s no way she’s going to let the season pass without it. Not after what she’s just heard.

She wonders if both of them are kidding themselves with _this_ or if it’s actually the one sensed thing they have going in their lives, decides that she wants it to be the second answer and so she’ll go for that one, and drives back home.

She has to go shopping tomorrow when she’s through with work, after all. She thinks that she hasn’t bought a dress for herself in ages and laughs the entire way home, but it’s not the bad kind of.

Not at all.  


TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m still in london so I will most likely get to comments when I’m back ;)


	3. if dreams came true, wouldn't that be nice?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which they get more serious and Christmas and New Year's are eventful.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI GUYS I'M BACK IN ITALY HAVE SOME MORE PORN and extra fluff before We Switch POVs Next Time. Please heed the warnings/new tags because as stated I've upped the ante with the porn in this one and I have a feeling both kinks might not be for everyone's taste and have fun ;)
> 
> Also: the poems mentioned in this chapter are both from the _Spoon River Anthology_ \- specifically, [Fletcher McGee and ](https://www.bartleby.com/84/4.html)[Mary McNeely](https://www.bartleby.com/84/101.html).

She drives to the nearest town over in order to get the dress, but the last thing she needs is anyone she knows wondering why she’d buy a dress that would barely fit her. She finds a store, says she needs it for her sister who has a masculine build, too, but not as much as her, and she likes dresses differently from Brienne, and wonders how she got this good at lying when the owner doesn’t bat an eyelid and starts presenting her possible dress choices. She considers them and eventually spends thirty bucks on one that’s a nice shade of turquoise, with enough green undertones that it would match his eyes — the owner assures her that it’s made _exactly_ for complimenting _unflattering curves_ or something of the kind, and Brienne can sort of see why as the waist isn’t really much narrow and the shoulders are large, so she supposes it’s going to be good enough. She imagines him wearing it, wondering if it would make his waist look smaller — _it could_ — and about holding him up against the wall while he has it on —

She pays for it, has it bagged, places it in her car’s trunk.

Next time.

_Next time_.

Other than that, though, it’s three weeks until Christmas, as he said yesterday, and she really does want to get him something that’s not a book or — well. Things they’ll use for fucking. She thinks about his room — it has all those movie posters on the walls, but it’s no help. The quilt on the bed, though… it _had_ seen better days. It was obviously handmade. But she has slept underneath it and sat on it and it’s really about to fall apart, and she doesn’t want to _presume_ anything, but —

She can’t make him one. She never was good at knitting or sewing or any of those tasks that everyone assumed she’d be good at just because all women _should_ be good at it — but she supposes she can look around. She goes around this one town, but she finds nothing special, and so she drives over to the next one, there’s still enough time after all, where she finds a sewing goods shop that takes orders.

“Do you think,” she asks the owner, “that you could make me a quilt large enough for a double-sized bed by the twentieth?”

The owner agrees to it and asks for details, and Brienne describes her the one on Jaime’s bed and leaves her five bucks for advance payment, with an agreement to come back for it on the agreed date. She drives back home half-smiling to herself.

She calls him later that evening. He says he’s free two days from now. She can hear him grinning as he tells her she can consider that evening booked.

She thinks of how he’d look in _that_ dress and feels blood rush to her face.

She can’t wait.

— —

She heads there at ten PM — her father’s away until the weekend, so he won’t know if she sleeps somewhere else, and she can go to work directly from Jaime’s tomorrow. She brings the bag with the dress carefully folded inside with and he opens the door before she even knocks.

She gets inside and he’s kissing her against the door the moment it closes, and she immediately kisses him back — he’s warm and strong against her, kissing her with such enthusiasm she’s almost floored, and fuck she _missed it_ —

“Fuck,” he says as they move apart to breathe, “I _had_ missed it.”

“Same,” she smiles, and then she notices a darkening bruise on his neck. He shrugs as she opens her mouth to ask.

“Job hazards,” he says. “But I got extra for it and Christmas is coming, we all have to pay the bills. So, what’s in the bag?”

“You _did_ have a request last time,” she says, and she sees the moment blood rushes to his face.

“Wait, you weren’t joking?”

“Not in that case. Are you still interested or —”

“Sure,” he says at once, “ _obviously_ , I just — I hadn’t thought —”

She shrugs again. “It didn’t seem to me like you were joking.” She hands him the bag. “Should I come upstairs in ten minutes?”

His teeth look insufferably white and straight in that smirk of his as he takes it. “Deal. See you then,” and then he disappears upstairs and she lets out a breath she hadn’t known she had been holding.

She just wishes he wasn’t so casual about the _hazards of the job_ , but she can’t do anything about that, can she? She sits for a while in the living room, then goes upstairs, knocks on the door and a moment later he opens it, and —

_Fuck_.

That dress _does_ really fit him — the shoulders are the right size, the cloth is soft and falls on his chest and hips seamlessly, and she hadn’t noticed a belt came with but if tied loosely it does look good around his waist. It stops just before his bare feet, showing a bit of ankle, and with his hair being long enough to pull falling around his neck in neat curls —

“What,” he says, half-twirling, “you like the show?”

“Does it seem like I _don’t_?” She says, closing the door behind her. Her throat feels completely dry. She’s painfully aware that she’s wearing jeans, boots and an old leather jacket that her _father_ got in Europe when he was deployed during the war some twenty-five years ago. Suddenly she feels burning hot in between her legs, and _oh_ , she wants to do to him the exact same things he said he wanted her to, and she knows her cheeks must feel scalding.

“Good,” he says, “so what are you waiting for?”

He winks at her, leaning against the bed, and she shakes her head as she comes closer, her hand brushing against the bruise on his neck.

“This is the only thing I don’t like,” she sighs, and he lets out a small sound as she touches it gently.

“Then maybe you should make me forget, shouldn’t you?”

“Maybe,” she agrees, “but I don’t remember you saying you wanted to start doing this on a _bed_.”

“I didn’t,” he agrees. “Does that mean —”

She doesn’t hold back grinning as wide as she can before taking her jacket off and throwing it on the nearby chair.

The moment he locks his arms around her neck, she grabs him under his thighs and pushes him against the nearest wall, not _slamming_ but pushing firmly, and his legs immediately lock under her back as she does, and she can feel his cock pressing against her crotch through the soft cloth of the dress and she _has_ to kiss him before she says something extremely embarrassing, and so she _does_ , leaning down as he parts his lips and slips his tongue inside her mouth, and he’s not even _that_ heavy — she could do this for a bit, she thinks.

“Fuck,” he groans, “I did think about it —”

“What,” she says, gripping tighter under his thighs, “me doing this?”

“ _Yes_ ,” he says, his legs closing tighter around her back. “How long —”

“I think a while,” she smiles, and leans down, kissing him again, hoisting him up higher as he presses his dick against her harder, finding friction, and oh he’s _harder_ now, and wait —

Oh.

She pushes him back against the wall a bit harder, so that he won’t risk falling and she can move a hand enough to sneak under the dress.

He has no underwear on.

“Fuck,” she says as she feels him grinning against her neck. “You _really_ wanted to make it easier for me, didn’t you?”

“And what if I did?” He moans, his hands grasping tighter at her shoulders.

“Why,” she replies, “ _thank you_ , that was absolutely appreciated.”

She feels him shudder but in a _good_ way, and then she thinks of what he told her on the car, and they can’t go much more forward than _this_ here, but maybe before they move on to the bed —

“So,” she says, “before I take full advantage of your foresight, maybe there’s something else you’d like me to do other than _this_?”

“Believe me,” he says, “you’re _already_ doing it.” He sounds like he means it, so she won’t doubt _that_ , but she has a feeling he’s not telling her something, and thinking back on that conversation —

“I don’t know,” she says, “you want me to sweep you off your feet and then do nothing else with that?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he says, his hips pressing forward again, “you aren’t making this any easier.”

He hasn’t denied it, has he?

“I don’t know,” she says, pulling his ass closer, and then her eyes fall on the movie poster behind his back.

“I mean, if you wanted more of a _Philadelphia Story_ type of thing, I wouldn’t have said no.”

“Wait, you aren’t saying —”

She grins, moves back from the wall, twirls the both of them around for one moment and then moves her arms so that she has one under his knees and one under his shoulders, and for a moment she compliments herself on how smooth it was just as he grabs at her back harder.

“I’m saying,” she replies, “that I’m down with it.”

He kisses her after giving her a look that almost made her knees feel weak, and so what if she hoists him up higher so it’s more comfortable, and then she slowly, _slowly_ lowers him down on the bed, kicking off her boots a moment later. She grabs a condom from the first drawer, then she moves her attention back to him a moment later, raising the lower part of the dress so that she uncovers his legs and can see for herself that _no_ , he had no underwear on and he’s so hard it has to border on moderately painful and the cloth is stained with it and her first instinct is leaning down and taking him in her mouth but —

She thinks she wants to drag this out.

Brienne moves her knees to straddle him, ignoring that her own jeans are feeling tight as hell right now, her hands going to his shoulders where the sleeves of the dress cover his shoulders, leans down, kisses that darkening bruise on his neck once, twice, then sucks lightly on it as he screams a few curse words in encouragement, then kisses her way back up his neck and to his mouth, her hands finding his hair again.

“You look so _pretty_ ,” she finally says, seeing if she’s guessed right, and from the way he shudders against her, she thinks she _has_. “And this fits you so well,” she goes on, running her hand where the dress covers his hip, moving it so that he might feel like she’s drawing a curve, and she feels his leg hook behind her knee as he presses himself upwards — she moves an arm behind his back so she can hold him up.

“Does it?” He asks, but he doesn’t sound as sure of himself as he usually does.

“Surely better than it would fit most girls,” she says, not that she minds _that_. “And do _you_ like it? Do I even need to ask?”

She doesn’t let him answer, just reaches down with her free hand, grabs hold of his dick, strokes it once, twice, _slow_ , trying to keep her fingers steady, and he whines a little as he tries to find friction against her hand.

“Yeah,” he says against her cheek a moment later, “fuck, _yes_ , but I need —”

“Tell me,” she encourages him. “ _Tell me_ , I want to know.”

“More,” he blurts, and when he looks up at her he doesn’t look as sad as he did the first time they met, and Brienne feels the blood rushing in her veins as she nods, leans down and kisses him again, jerking him off slow enough that he’ll have relief but that he won’t come, not just _now_.

She breaks the kiss, moving her lips to his cheeks, first one and then the other, pushing him back down gently to the mattress so she has her hand free and she can run it along his hips again, straightening out the dress as she does, and she thinks she’s flushing red but she can’t care less right now, not when he’s looking up at her as if he’s burning with need and she’s the only one that can fulfill it.

“Too bad,” she says, “I don’t hear anyone from school anymore. I could’ve brought you to the next reunion.” She strokes him, again. “Dressed like _this_.”

His back arches up higher, his hands grasping at her arms. “Fuck —”

“You’d have looked better in it than any girl who’d come anyway,” she goes on, barely thinking about what she’s saying — she just knows that the more she speaks the more his pupils are blown and his ankle is keeping her leg anchored to the bed. “And I couldn’t want a better date, for that matter.”

He shudders against her again, and she can feel how hot his skin is turning, and he feels like he’s somewhat tense, too much, and — that’s not _bad_ , but —

She moves her hand from his dick, not minding the noise of protest he makes before she brings it to his face and kisses him into the pillow, slowing down the pace, and to her surprise he doesn’t protest, actually he goes with it, letting her lead, letting her run her tongue across his mouth, giving her access as his heartbeat slows down, barely but it _does_.

“Good,” she says, “there’s no one running after us. And I want to savor it.”

He blinks at her twice, breathes in, and then his ankle’s hold on her leg loosens a bit. “Thanks,” she says, kissing the corner of his mouth again. She moves back, enough to open her jeans and get rid of them and her soaked underwear — shit, _she_ ’ll need to go back home without given the state of it the moment she throws it on the side.

Then she looks back at him, and he’s staring at her like he’s seeing some marvel and maybe she hadn’t thought anyone could look at her half-naked body and find it such, but right now it doesn’t seem too difficult to believe. She moves on top of him again, touches herself in between her legs for a moment, then moves her fingers to his mouth and _fuck_ , he immediately parts his lips to lick them clean and for a moment she feels another rush of blood go downwards.

Then she goes back to what she’s supposed to do. “That’s what _this_ is doing to me,” she says, “not that it’s so different for you, is it.” He moans a little around her fingers, but he doesn’t tell her to stop. “And believe me, I _love_ it.”

“You do?” He manages, her fingertips still on his tongue.

“Feeling how wet for _me_ you are? Yes,” she admits, grabbing the condom before slipping it on him as quick as she can manage, then moving her hands back down to his hips, lining up with his cock, sliding down on it as slow as she can manage, and the way he moans as she does _almost_ tips her over the edge. _Almost_.

Not yet.

The dress is all around her legs now and she feels how soft it is as she rolls her hips and slowly, slowly starts riding him. She reaches down and pins his wrists to the mattress, making him moan even louder.

Now he’s not that strung anymore. Now he’s relaxing into it, and so she keeps on going slow and trailing kisses along his cheekbones, noticing that he’s following _her_ motions, thrusting up inside her when _she_ is moving down.

“You feel so good,” she says, because he _does_ and it’s the truth and he should know, and she clenches around him as she rolls her hips downwards again, and he gasps at that, such a needy sound that for a moment she loses her rhythm. “Hey,” she reaches down again, her hands on his face, and when he looks up at her his pupils are blown and his eyes are bright green and he’s looking up at her as if she’s the best thing he’s ever seen —, “what do you need?”

“It’s fine —”

“Maybe it is,” she shakes her head, smiling down at him. “But come on, tell me. I want you to. I _want_ you —”

He parts his lips, breathes, then says —

“I need you _closer_ —” He starts, and doesn’t finish, but she thinks she got it, and so she nods and moves her arms behind his back, pulling him up, holding him against her, his head ending up in the middle of her chest — he rubs his cheek against one of her breasts through her shirt and maybe she should have pulled it off but she can’t now, she’s too close, and so she runs her hands through his hair instead as his hands grasp at her hips, but without trying to halter her motions.

“Like this?” She moans, knowing that she’s close and feeling that he must be, too —

“ _Yes_ ,” he says against her chest, sounding like he’s about to fall apart at the seams —

She doesn’t think she can drag this on much longer. “All right, _all right_ , give it to me, come on, I want to feel it —”

She doesn’t have to say it twice — he goes rigid for one moment before he blurts her name once, twice, and she rolls her hips down again one last time so she’s clenching around him and he’s coming and trembling against her chest, and a moment later she closes her eyes as her blood burns through her veins and the darkness of the room turns into pleasure exploding through every inch of her, his fingers grasping at her back tighter as she moves back and crashes their mouths together.

Brienne doesn’t break the kiss until the rush has passed, and then she doesn’t really break contact — she hoists herself up so he can slip out of her, but then she lays down on the bed, keeping a hand at the back of his head and one around his waist as the dirtied skirt of the dress covers his legs.

She feels like she’s just gotten to the end of one of her four-hour trainings in school except it’s _better_ , and then she looks back down at him — he opens his eyes as she cups his cheek in her palm, almost nuzzling against it.

“So,” she says, “was that — what you wanted?”

“More than,” he says. “Uh, you — _did_ seem to —”

“Enjoy it?” She interrupts. “I’d do it again right now, for that matter. I didn’t just _seem_ to enjoy it.”

“I — good,” he says, sounding relieved. “I, fuck, so what if I want to do it again?”

“As long as you wash that dress, I’m not bringing it home to do it.”

“I think I can handle that,” he grins back, and his shoulders are losing tension again when before they had regained some of it, and so she holds him closer and runs her fingers through his hair again until he’s not tense at all anymore, and she thinks of how good it had felt to see him trust her enough to do what they just did and to see him come undone under her hands, and she’s entirely beyond wondering if she should be worried about how much she actually enjoyed it.

— —

Too bad that in between people flooding the bookshop just before the holidays she barely has time to breathe, and when she manages to call him he sounds like he’s not having fun at all as he tells her that of course each single client of his who can afford squeezing hours in the last weeks before Christmas is showing up, and so they agree on seeing each other _after_ Christmas.

Or at least, that’s what _he_ thinks, because Brienne is absolutely bent on showing up there with her quilt, if it came out good.

She just hopes she won’t have to lie to her father, but —

“I think I have something to tell you,” he says as they have dinner on the 19th.

Brienne hopes against hope that he hasn’t found out and disapproves, even if she doesn’t think he would —

“All right,” she says. “What is it?”

“Uh, what if — this is embarrassing. But — I suppose you _do_ know Miss Harlaw.”

“Mr. Harlaw’s sister? Of course I do. She’s not around the shop that much, but I do see her around.” Her boss’s sister isn’t exactly _liked_ at large by anyone around here — she divorced her asshole husband a few years ago and she’s been shunned from church and most other places that aren’t Tyrion’s diner, and her youngest son’s only friend is Robb Stark, so Brienne has run into him a few times, and sometimes she shows up at the bookshop. She’s a nice lady, she thinks. Looks sad most of the time.

( _A bit like Jaime._ )

But she also looks… like she’s doing good. Better than when she was married to that asshole Balon Greyjoy.

“We ran into each other in Atlantic City a while ago. I was there for work and she took a holiday, and we recognized each other because we were alone in the same restaurant. We talked a while, then we might have seen each other a few other times after that, and then — uh —”

“Dad,” Brienne says, “if you want to tell me you and Miss Harlaw are _close_ or went beyond that already, it’s _fine_.” Actually, she’s relieved to hear it. “She’s a lovely lady, and Mom’s been dead for years, and I know it took a toll on you. Also, her previous husband was an arse. It’s all right, really.”

He breathes in relief. “Oh. Good. Because, uh, she might have invited me over for Christmas lunch, and we never do anything special so I figured —”

She breathes in. Maybe it’s time she tells him.

“Listen,” she says, “maybe — oh, damn it. I told you I might be seeing someone, right? Well, uh, it might be… somewhat serious.”

Her father’s eyes go wide immediately, but he seems cautiously happy about it. “And is this person someone you might want to spend Christmas with?”

“He — doesn’t know that yet, but… yes. So — it’s all right. You don’t have to spend it with me doing nothing as usual,” she smiles.

“Hm,” he nods. “And on that topic… can a father know who is this mysterious guy or is it a secret? I hope not any of those —”

“No, no. None of them. I couldn’t.” She breathes in and out. “I know it’s going to sound — bad. But — ah, fuck it. It’s Jaime Lannister.”

She can see the moment he _almost_ drops his coffee cup on the table. “Wait,” he says, “how do you even know — Brienne, you _didn’t_ — but you _did_ , right?”

Good thing he doesn’t sound angry.

“Yeah,” she admits. “I just, after the bet I thought, if I just went to someone and paid for it then no one could… do that to me anymore, you know? And I was tired, I’ll admit it. And — he was… good to me. So I went back. And things happened and it turns out we liked each other _beyond_ that and — yeah. I’m seeing how it goes. But believe me, he’s — better than it looks.”

He nods, and says nothing for a while. Then he looks straight at her. “I remember well enough when he did start doing _that_ for a living,” he says. “Before then, he and his brother seemed the only sensed people in that family. And he always was perfectly nice to everyone unless his sister was around. I’m more worried that you might get mixed in _their_ melodrama, but — does he make you happy?”

“What if he does?” Brienne asks.

“Then I guess we can tell each other how it went on the 26th,” he smiles at her. “But if it gets any more serious I want to meet him.”

Brienne is about to cry. She hadn’t thought it’d go so well. “Sure,” she says. “Sure, I’ll make sure to arrange it.”

“Are you _sure_ about it, though? I mean, he’s —”

“Older than me?” She shrugs. “Yes, but — it really doesn’t matter. Dad, for — he cried when he read _Of Mice and Men_ , I think he’s harmless.”

“That wasn’t what I meant, but — He _did_?”

She smiles. “He did.”

“Well, his sister wouldn’t. Let me know how it goes, though. I don’t want you to —”

“Don’t worry,” she says, touching his wrist. “I wouldn’t have let it happen if I wasn’t sure.”

He seems to be satisfied with it, for now at least.

And for what concerns _her_ , she’s just too happy that she doesn’t have to lie to him anymore.

— —

The following day, she goes to get her quilt. It’s exactly how she wanted it, and she leaves the woman an extra for having been this quick. She has her gift-wrap it, then drives back home with a smile on her lips, again.

— —

On the 23rd, she shows up at Tyrion’s with a bag, hoping that it’s early enough that no one is around.

It is.

“Here,” she tells him, slipping the bag over the counter as he hands her coffee and the free cinnamon roll she never asks for.

“What — wait, you got me a _Christmas present_?”

She shrugs. “You’ve been giving me free pastries for a month and I think we have enough common ground that it would be… well. Not a necessary courtesy. I felt like I should. Anyway, it was one of the top bestsellers this year. You should like it, from what I gather.”

He says nothing as he slips a brand new copy of _The Outsiders_ from the bag, and he does grin at the sight. “I had meant to get it, I just never got around to buy it. You’re remarkably good at _this_ , aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Picking books for other people,” he says.

“Wait, you know —”

He slips the book back into the bag again, placing it carefully under the counter. “Brienne,” he says, bagging her another cinnamon roll, “I could have told you in a frankly embarrassing way that if you wanted to give me a Christmas present, I could have considered one the fact that for the first time in _years_ I actually could discuss books with Jaime while he wasn’t just taking my word at face value, and I _never_ told you this and you’ll _never_ tell a soul about it. But since I really did want to read that one, I’ll take it.”

“Good,” she says. “And if I go there on the 25th, I’m not going to find clients, am I?”

“Please,” Tyrion says, “it’s been ten years since he dumped everything and rented that house and it’s been ten years that whenever I call him to check how he’s doing after the horrid Christmas family lunch, he’s on his way to pass out from how much he drinks. He only does during the winter holidays but he holds it like shit, so I really don’t think you’ll find other people. Actually, get there before lunch, maybe it’s the one year he spends it sober.”

She nods, taking in the information. She imagines it — snow outside, the other houses in that street probably filled with people before they were abandoned, his door closed, Jaime looking down a glass of whiskey with those sad, sad eyes of his —

She thanks Tyrion, says the book was a pleasure and goes to work.

— —

On the 25th, her dad is off to Miss Harlaw’s after they exchange gifts in the morning — he bought her the newest Rolling Stones LP and she got him a few novels that she thinks he’d like, and then she grabs her packed quilt and heads off for Jaime’s. Most people are in, thankfully, because of course everyone is with their families _now_. It’s biting cold outside, the snow crunching under her feet — she goes as fast as possible until she reaches his street and passes by a number of those empty houses before she arrives on his porch.

Then she knocks on his door.

“Who the fuck is it now —” He starts, opening the door — he’s still in his pajamas and he looks like he slept horribly. “— oh, _shit_ , sorry, I — I didn’t know —”

“I didn’t warn,” she says. “Can I come in or —”

“No, I mean, _yes_ , sure, you can come in. Sorry, I just — wait. I _did_ tell you that no one —”

“Why do you think I’m here?”

“Shouldn’t you be with —”

“My father?” She smiles as she walks inside. “Well, seems like he’s courting Miss Harlaw, so he was invited at her place today. See, everything works out. Oh, this — this is for you,” she says, handing him over the package.

He looks at it. Then at her.

“Wait, did you just —”

“Get you a present? Yeah. I mean, it’s what it is, but —”

He grabs it at once, and she notices that his fingers are shaking.

Then he motions for her to go into the living room and they drop on the sofa before he opens it. But he doesn’t — he looks at her instead. “Do you know,” he says, “how many people showed up with presents here in the last ten years, bar Tyrion?”

“… Not many?”

“No one,” he says, tearing the paper. “I think that _whatever it is_ it couldn’t possibly disappoint me, and — oh,” he trails away as he actually sees what’s inside and unfolds the quilt. “Fuck, is it handmade?”

“Yes,” she says. “Uh, I didn’t — I can’t crochet worth a damn, but I found someone who could. It’s just, I saw that yours had seen better days so I thought — but you don’t have to —”

He shakes his head before letting it fall on his legs. “The old one,” he says, “uh, my aunt made it. When I was in high school. As in… a long fucking time ago. I just — I haven’t seen her in years and it was one of the few things I could bring from, uh, you know. And it’s been falling apart, but — I figured I’d keep it until it really did. I’ll put it in the closet so it doesn’t fall apart any further now. So _no_ , you don’t need to, like, _apologize_ for it, because that’s just like you sounded. And do you think _I_ could crochet? Please.”

“Good,” she says. “Uh, I’m glad it — worked out. And — I guess — listen, I told my father. About, huh —”

“What, the two of us?” His voice loses the chipper edge it had just now, and she immediately reaches down to take his hand.

“It didn’t go as badly as you think,” she says.

“It didn’t — sorry, you’re telling me he didn’t say that you should just end things and run as far away from me as possible?”

“No, he said that he remembers that you were one of the few nice people in your family and if we get any more serious he wants to meet you.”

At _that_ , he looks positively speechless. “He does _what_ ,” he blurts.

“Want to meet you,” she smiles back. “Really. He does. Relax, I didn’t come here to break things off on Christmas.”

“Good thing that,” he exhales, his fingers twining with hers. “But — seriously?”

She nods. “Seriously. And don’t look like we _have_ to go upstairs now. I came here because I wanted to spend time with you, not for anything else.”

“I don’t know if it’s the best you could manage for the day,” he says, sounding like he can’t buy that she actually came.

“I think it is.”

His mouth is warm and soft against hers a moment later as he grabs her shirt and hauls her in for a kiss.

Well, she thinks, smiling into it, this has gone pretty damn well.

Hopefully, by the end of the day it will have gone even better.

— —

It _does_.

She cooks him lunch with what little he had in the fridge, resolving that she _will_ make pancakes next time she’s here, he distracts her all along, they share it on the sofa and when she has to go back in the evening they’ve spent an afternoon curled up against each other, and by the time she’s pulling back her boots on they’re both grinning like high schoolers, and he kisses her with swollen lips before she opens the door.

Then he slips a piece of paper in the pocket of her jeans before she steps out of the door.

“What —” She says.

“Just wait until you get home,” he replies, his cheeks slightly flushing. “It’s your rain check receipt for your Christmas present.”

“Please,” she says, “my birthday is in a week, you can make up for it then.”

“… December 31st? _Really_?” He snorts.

“Not the best day, but what can you do about it?”

He says he will think about it and she says she’ll call, and then she leaves before she changes her mind. She waits until she’s halfway home to take the folded message out of her pocket. She opens it in the cold air, reading the first hastily scribbled line.

_I don’t know if I could say it better,_ it reads. _Good thing you saved me the hassle._ Wait, how did _she_ save him any hassle…?

She reads the rest of the message, written in a steadier hand, even if his handwriting is a still messy and some letters are definitely inverted. It takes her a moment to realize that it’s —

Oh.

One of the poems from _Spoon River_ , which means he _did_ read it or is reading it and not hating it, but then she realizes _which_ one is it.

_Oh_.

_1._

_She took my strength by minutes,_

_She took my life by hours,_

_She drained me like a fevered moon_

_That saps the spinning world._

_The days went by like shadows,_

_The minutes wheeled like stars._

_She took the pity from my heart,_

_And made it into smiles._

_She was a hunk of sculptor's clay,_

_My secret thoughts were fingers:_

_They flew behind her pensive brow_

_And lined it deep with pain._

_They set the lips, and sagged the cheeks,_

_And drooped the eye with sorrow._

_My soul had entered in the clay,_

_Fighting like seven devils._

_It was not mine, it was not hers;_

_She held it, but its struggles_

_Modeled a face she hated,_

_And a face I feared to see._

Her finger shake as she reads it all over again, realizing that he hasn’t copied the entire thing, it misses the _sad_ part of it, or well, the saddest, and there was no _1_ in the original. Then she notices, written so small at the bottom of the page —

_That’s how it used to be before I kissed you_ , she reads, and a few tears fall on the page, smudging the last words — she immediately folds it back and heads straight home, even if she’s tempted to run back. If he had wanted to discuss it when she was there, he’d have given it to her before.

She can’t help thinking, _does that mean there’s a part two coming_?

She thinks she wants to know very, very much, but the next time they see each other she _is_ going to talk to him about it.

— —

She doesn’t call the next day, figuring that if he’s with his brother (the diner is closed) they should spend their time together. She does the one after, though, and his voice is more serious than usual when he asks her if she’d like to spend the evening of the 31st at his place. Her heart beats _faster_ as she says of course.

— —

Her father seems overjoyed that _for once she’s not going to waste the evening with him watching television_ , and when she asks him if Miss Greyjoy has an invitation for him, too, he blushes as he says she might. She tells him that she’s only too happy if it’s the case, and maybe she puts on her nicest jeans and shirt and coat before heading for his place. It’s snowing, and it sticks to her hair as she makes her way to the edge of town, until she knocks on his door — he has the only light on in the entire street.

He opens it at once, and she _does_ notice that he’s worn the same nice clothing he had on the first time she came here. He also looks… a bit fidgety?

“Hey,” he says, “happy birthday.”

“Thanks,” she grins back, coming inside. “So, did you have any plans?”

“… Actually, yes.” He looks almost tense, _why_ , and she follows him to the living room, through that always dark hallway, and —

Oh.

He set the table for two, when she’s never seen him use it to eat. The plates and glasses and cutlery are obviously cheap, but they’re sparkly clean, and there’s take-out from the only good Italian place in town in the middle —

“Sorry,” he says, “I can survive on my own but my cooking’s hardly the best, so — I figured I’d go for something that won’t just be edible. Uh, I might have got my brother to order a cake from his usual supplier, and I hope you’re not fucking allergic to chocolate or anything because otherwise it’d be just embarrassing —”

She shakes her head, grasping his hand, forgetting that she _had_ wanted to talk to him about that one thing. “Jaime, for — are you apologizing for actually doing something _nice_ for me or what, because if you are you really should stop now.”

“Hardly the best present,” he says, but he sounds relieved, and she wishes he’d just _stop_ putting things as if he never gets them _right_ —

“The last time I celebrated with anyone but my father someone made fun of my dress and I cried for the entire day, now will you stop assuming you’re doing things wrong?”

“… Fine,” he agrees, even if he sounds slightly murderous towards whoever made her cry, and then he proceeds on opening the take out boxes.

The food is _good_ , the wine he bought with is even better and the triple chocolate cake from Tyrion’s supplier is not bad either, and by the end of it they’re pleasurably buzzed and making out on the couch and she thinks she’d be happy with just _that_ , but then he clears his throat.

“Uhm,” he says, “I — the dinner was what I could put together without knowing first. I mean, I don’t usually shop around town. For reasons.”

“Jaime, it’s _fine_ —”

“ _But_ ,” he goes on, ignoring her, “I just, wanted to do a bit more than that. I did. So — well. I mean, it’s not like we _don’t_ usually, do things that we both want, I know that, but — shit, this sounded a lot better in my head.”

“ _What_ did,” she says.

“Well, uh, I thought — whatever we do later, you’re calling it.”

For a moment she wants to ask how is that different from what they usually do since he barely asks for things anyway, but the way he looks at her makes her realize that maybe he means —

“Jaime, you’re not saying that —”

“We can do whatever you want. I won’t say no to anything.”

She swallows, seeing that he’s uttermost serious. “But if you don’t like it —”

“Brienne, I have sex I don’t like most of my damned time, that wouldn’t be _an issue_.”

Shit. He sounds like he means it, and like he thinks it’s entirely acceptable that he’d do something he _doesn’t_ want to just for — she shakes her head a bit, moves closer, enough that they could kiss.

“Maybe it wouldn’t be, but I don’t know if I could enjoy it if we did _anything_ you obviously didn’t like. And — uh. I — I wouldn’t want to do anything you _didn’t_. We can — I can decide and we can go from there, but you _have_ to tell me if you don’t want it.”

“Shit,” he says, “you’re _something_ , do you know that?”

No, she thinks. _No_ , she shouldn’t be _something_. That should be the rule.

“And you’re _not_ a face I fear to see,” she whispers back, and at that he gasps, his eyes going wide, and —

“So you did read that, didn’t you,” he says.

“Do I have to expect others?”

“Yes,” he says at once. “But — really?”

“No,” she replies, “all the contrary. For that matter…” She stops, takes a breath, looks straight at him. “You _did_ finish that book, didn’t you?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“Because… _to love is to find your own soul, through the soul of the beloved one, when the beloved one withdraws itself from your soul… then you have lost your soul_ ,” she recites, finding the guts to look straight at him, and a moment later he makes a noise in the back of his throat and kisses her _again_ , hard, fast, and he has his legs around hers a moment later, his hands in her hair, his mouth almost greedy against hers, and she doesn’t know how long they kiss, but it can’t be much, because her blood is boiling again and she needs more, she needs _more_ —

“Upstairs,” he says, “shit, we need to —”

She considers it. Then —

“I can carry you, I think,” she says, and —

“… You _can_?”

“Why not,” she grins against his mouth, and then he’s holding on to her neck and her hands are under his legs and she’s lifted him up —

Yeah.

She thinks she can get upstairs, if she doesn’t waste time.

— —

She _does_ get upstairs, even if by the time she drops him on the bed she’s out of breath.

“Fuck,” he says as she does, and she can feel how hard he is, just for _that_ , “not to repeat myself, but you’re _something_ , do you know that?”

“Maybe,” she says, “too bad no one else noticed.”

“Better for _me_ ,” he says, sounding maybe a bit smug, and fuck, _fuck_ , her clothes are already feeling constricting and so she takes them off before moving her attention back to him, and now she doesn’t mind at all that she’s naked and he’s clothed bar for his feet, and he’s just laying there on the bed as if he’s waiting for her, only for her, and she thinks of what he asked before, and her blood runs hot again even if she hates that he doesn’t seem to think that whether _he_ wants it or not matters, and so she moves back to straddle him, and — he looks more relaxed now, she thinks, than he was when he wore the dress. She licks her lips, unable to keep it in, then brushes her fingers over his cheeks, along his neck, on the ghost of that bruise from days ago.

“I want to go slow,” she thinks, and then his breath hitches, and maybe —

_Maybe_ —

It would be beside the point now to tell him that there’s nothing she wants more than seeing him _like_ what she does to him because then he’d argue that this is for _her_ and they’d lose any steam, but if she takes her time —

She unbuttons his shirt very, very slowly as she leans down and kisses him.

He immediately kisses her back, his hands framing her face, but — gently. As if he’ll move them if she asks him to.

She doesn’t, and keeps on unbuttoning his shirt until she has his chest bare underneath her. She trails her kisses down the side of his face, along his neck, licking at the saltiness on his skin before she sucks on that bruise again, and then she moves _down._

She takes her damn sweet time.

She runs her hands over his chest before she kisses the places where her fingers have been, tracing his collarbones, noticing that he has a few faint white scars along them that she never noticed before somehow — they look like someone tore skin away with very sharp nails. She says nothing and kisses all of them, once, twice, running her tongue over them, then moves down, over his chest, her hands grasping at his pecs, and _fuck_ but his nipples are stiff and when she twists on one he almost arches off the bed, his hands going to her hair

( _maybe she’s letting it grow_ )

and grasping slightly at it, and she moans in approval as she moves down and _down_ , until she gets to his navel and notices that there are a few cigarette burns next to it — old, they’re _old_ , white and almost faded but still there, and she tries to not think of how they might have happened as she kisses them, too, and then as much as it’s tempting her, she doesn’t touch his dick and kisses her way back up, feeling his muscles flex under her mouth, but — he’s not tense. Not at all. Less than before, actually. He’s lying on the bed without a care in the world, and his hips arch upwards whenever she finds a sensitive spot — she takes care to remember all of them, then she finally takes a look at his face, and — oh. He’s looking up at her with wide green eyes, blown pupils, his lips parted as he lets out short, fast breaths, and his shoulders aren’t tense as she kneads them for a bit before breathing in.

“Hey,” she says, reaching down with a hand around his cheek, “I’m calling the shots here, right?”

“Whatever you want,” he says, his voice barely audible.

Right. _All right_. She leans down, her lips close to his ear. “Then tell me what it is that _you_ want that you never asked for even if I know you want to,” she whispers. “I know there _is_ something. If I don’t like it I’ll just say no. But tell me. Please?”

For a moment he goes still, but then he breathes out, turns his head so that _his_ mouth is near her ear, and he says it, so low it’s barely audible, and then says that she doesn’t have to, but Brienne —

Brienne’s heard that and she can’t unhear it now.

“It’s — fine,” she says, “but — why?”

He shrugs, minutely. “I can’t explain — too long. But there’s no one else I’d trust with it.”

She swallows, nodding. It sounds — it sounds _strange_ and she’d have never considered doing it on her own, but now that he said it — _now that he said it_ — she pictures doing it and she shouldn’t _want_ to but she _does_ , and — all right. All right. If they’re careful, it _could_ be doable.

“Anything feels wrong or you need to stop, _tug_ on my arm or make some noise and make sure I know, all right?”

“Wait, you’ll do it?” He asks, sounding surprised.

“Yeah,” she says, “I could. Just — promise me you will.”

He nods at once, then says it, _I promise_ , and throws his head back, his neck arching up, the curve of it so pale in the dim light of his lamp, and — all right. _All right_ , she thinks as she opens his jeans and undresses him for good, she spent years running after a damned ball for a sport that implied knowing exactly where to hit if you wanted to hurt someone, and differently from her teammates she _had_ studied how, and —

She breathes in. Then she moves her hands up to his neck. She thinks about it for a moment, immediately ruling out touching anywhere she isn’t sure of, and moves her hands to the sides of it.

She can feel his throat working up in anticipation as he looks up at her.

Brienne’s fingers shake as they touch the sides of his neck lightly, _slowly_ , and his head goes slightly backwards as he lets out a small moan.

_I want your hands on my neck_ , he had said.

She presses a bit more, feeling it as his hips arch slightly upwards. She lets him go, waits for him to take a breath, then presses again. He lets out a sound that makes it obvious that he’s enjoying it, good, that’s good, so she does it again, and again, and the fourth time she presses a bit more but making sure that she’s still not doing it too hard, and his pulse is still steady and strong under he fingers, and _oh_ , it’s making her blood run hot and she wants to touch herself a _lot_ right now, but seeing him look up at her gratefully as she lets him breathe and then cuts off the flow again, slow, makes her forget momentarily how much, and she has no idea of how he’s _liking_ it, the thought of someone doing that to _her_ is hardly pleasant, but he moans when she lets his throat go, whispering her name before she does it _again_ , and the way he’s not resisting it for a moment is doing _things_ to her and she wants to kiss him and so she stops pressing and does, and he kisses back at once, slow, less refined than usual, as if he can’t put too much finesse into it, but it’s fine, it’s _fine_ , and fuck but getting condoms now would break the moment, wouldn’t it —

She breathes in once, twice, then moves one hand away from his neck and to his dick, just as she moves her whole palm around his throat — she keeps her fingers on the sides where they were before, and guess what, she might have cursed her large hands and long fingers for years because they weren’t thin and soft and slender and they were unfit for nail polish, but now she’s grateful because she can keep them around his throat without actually risking to touch it.

He looks at her expectantly. “Should I —” She starts.

“Please,” he whispers, like there’s nothing else he wants more right now, and so she presses softly at the sides of his neck with one hand as she jerks him off with the other, trying to time it so that one hand’s motions mirror the other’s, and she doesn’t good how successful it is but it doesn’t matter because his pulse doesn’t slow down too much nor goes up too much, and his hips jerk upwards, meeting her touch, and fuck but right now he’s quite literally _in her damned hands_ , or hand, and the way he’s looking up at her is almost making _her_ breathless, and so she jerks him off faster and faster, letting her grip go for a bit before risking making it a bit tighter, and he comes so hard she almost jumps off the damned bed herself, saying nothing but still looking at her with blown pupils and parted lips and flushed cheeks, and she immediately lets his neck go as she keeps on stroking him through it, and when he’s spent under her fingers she leans back down over him, and he’s staring at her so intently she thinks she might combust for it, and she’s so wet it _hurts_ by now.

She considers it for a moment, then she leans down to kiss him again and he immediately responds, no finesse but all enthusiasm same as before, and fuck but she’s burning for how much she _wants_ him —

She hadn’t even noticed that she had touched his face with her dirty hand, but then he turns and licks it clean without her even having asked him to, and oh, she needs him _now_ , and if it can’t be his cock — she runs a finger over his lips, which are wet and kiss-swollen and ripe-strawberry red now —

“I need —” She starts, and he nods at once, slurring _yes_ and _please_ under his breath, and so she goes on her knees and moves forward and grabs the headboard as she sits on his face and he buries it in her crotch, and a moment later he’s sucking at her clit before his tongue runs along it and then slips inside her, and it’s not as precise as it was the first time and it doesn’t feel like he’s making her come because he’s hella experienced at it and so it’s a given, but it’s better, it’s so much better, and she knows he most likely wasn’t putting on much of an act _then_ but now she can feel the difference, and it’s not the first time she thinks it but it just hits her in the face so strongly she has to grasp at the headboard tighter, and it doesn’t take her long to spill against his tongue, shaking all over him as she tries to not drop her weight on him.

She manages not to and she lets him breathe, moving to the other side of the bed, and a moment later he curls into her, soft and and warm and smelling of sex as much as she does, and they should probably wash, but — maybe not right now.

“You all right?” She asks him, moving back, her hands carding through his fingers.

He moans a positive answer before his mouth finds her collarbone and his head goes to the crook of her neck.

She manages to grab the blankets and put them over the both of them.

If he wakes up later, she’s going to make sure he _tells_ her he’s fine. Meanwhile, she realizes she hasn’t even realized if the year has passed or not, and there’s no clock in his room, but — it doesn’t matter. She’ll begin it waking up next to him.

She thinks _that_ matters more.

— —

The morning after, she leaves him to sleep and goes down quietly to the kitchen. She snoops around, delighted to see he _does_ have what she needs to make pancakes, and so she sets down to work. It’s all white outside. If only they lived somewhere else, it might even look beautiful.

It might.

For the next half hour, she cuts apples, doses sugar and whiskers the batter with a smile on her lips, her naked feet on the wooden floor, and by the time she hears him come downstairs, she has two plates fully stacked and covered in apple-sugary sauce, and he stops right on the door, looking at her, then at the table, then at her again. His hair is all over the place even if he has more or less combed it down with his fingers, he’s wearing an old, threadbare shirt that would be his death if the heating wasn’t at maximum, and the way his mouth falls open at the sight _is_ a little bit amusing.

“I can cook, you know,” she tells him, not bothering to hide that she’s delighted at seeing him that stunned.

“I can smell it,” he blurts, and then makes his way towards the stove. “Did I really have enough ingredients for _that_?”

She snorts. “I know, I couldn’t have bet on it either. So, are you going to eat them or not?”

“Who do you take me for?” He replies, mock-offended, and his ankle wraps around hers under the table after they both sit down. His face when he eats the first bite is enough to make her blood run warmer, but then he opens his eyes and looks at her as if he couldn’t imagine a better way of starting the year, and she wonders, how good would it be if they could do this every day?

Oh, it _would_ be — her heart skips a beat just _thinking_ about eating with him every morning, seeing him smile at her like he is right now, like this was one of those… not _normal_ relationships, more like the ones in the movies he likes where two people who have no business being together run off and forget about civilization and get to be happy, and she wonders, _could we be like that one day_ , and — they lasted this long.

It would be sweet, if they lasted _longer_.

“So,” he says, swallowing a piece of pancake, “you think we can go back to Atlantic City at some point soon?”

She smiles, letting out a relieved laugh.

“Whenever you like,” she says, meaning it. From the way he looks at her, she’s sure he means it, too.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm halfway through chapter four but as I'm back home now I should be done in a few days. I hope I won't keep you all waiting too long. /o\ see you next time with, uh, the POV switch. /o\


	4. the weak lies and the cold you embrace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Jaime has a few not really great days and they go see a movie. It's more complicated than it sounds.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ..... hi. So, this thing was supposed to be five chapters, so you're going to ask, WHY THE FUCK ARE THEY EIGHT NOW, and the answer is that I was supposed to do ONE jaime pov and then go back to brienne and finish it... except that the jaime pov is currently 20k long by itself and I REALLY doubt that I can finish it before two other long scenes which means that you get it split in three and then brienne comes back and then there's the epilogue. HAVE FUN I HOPE because this damned POV is being... interesting. And by interesting we mean JAIME YOU HAVE ISSUES. /o\
> 
> now, **actual warnings** : as we're into jaime pov now (hahaha), you get the not so nice view into his professional life. the ships I tagged are the most relevant, but other clients include selyse, randyll tarly, lothar frey, amerei frey and hothor umber ie everyone mentioned in the extra characters bracket. none of the sex with any of these is particularly great *and* it turns unsafe/rough/borderline violent in a couple of cases, there's no in-depth descriptions of anything but if you wanna skip that bit, the point where I started separating with *** has the entire list until it gets to brienne at the end (the longer part obviously), so if you want to skip/skim feel free to, you know where it is. aaaalso look at the new tags. also: jaime's self-loathing is pretty damned bad, I did warn you. /o\
> 
> in less heavy notes: the Spoon River poem mentioned here is [Roscoe Purkapile](https://www.bartleby.com/84/135.html), while the movie they go watch is [Stagecoach](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stagecoach_\(1939_film\)) \- you don't need to have seen it to get what's going on but other than preemptively saying there are obviously spoilers from it in case anyone minds (I mean it's an old movie but I figured I'd warn xD), what you need to know is that the plot concerns a group of people on a stagecoach journey during which john wayne's character (ringo) who's an outlaw who ran away from prison to get revenge for his family's death falls for claire trevor's character (dallas) ie the local prostitute who has been turned away from the rest of the town without knowing her trade until the end (and at that point he can't care less) and half of it is her being torn over telling him or not because she thinks he'd hate her if he knew. here, there's about everything you need to know unless you want to read the plot from the above link - I suppose you already guessed WHY this particular movie got picked anyway. ;) right, that should be everything. I'll... saunter vaguely downwards now. /o\

“It’ll be an extra twenty-five,” Jaime croaks as he pulls up his jeans.

He usually doesn’t ask for extra _after_. But Lysa Tully _definitely_ has some anger issues that she obviously will never let out on anyone else, and given that he has two thin rivulets of blood flowing down from his arm from where she dug in with her nails as she dragged him on top of her, he thinks it’s the case.

She stares at his arm, looking disappointed, but then huffs and hands him the extra three bills. He pushes them in his pocket. “Next time we can discuss it first,” he says.

“Whatever,” she shrugs. “I’ll call next time.”

She finishes putting on her dress and gets out of the house — Jaime doesn’t bother walking her to the door. She knows her way out.

He waits until he hears the door close. It’s three in the morning. No one will come at this hour, not if they haven’t booked, and no one has, so he sighs, locks the door of the room behind himself, leaving the white walls and comfortable bed _there_ , and goes into his bathroom. Not the one attached to the room. _His._

It’s smaller, but he likes it better. He sighs, reaching for some disinfectant, then puts it on a small piece of cotton wool and cleans off his arm. The bleeding stops easily. He doesn’t know if those nails were sharp enough to scar, but if they did, it wouldn’t be the worst thing that ever happened to him.

He makes sure that he’s not bleeding anymore before he steps into the shower. On a better night, he’d have reached down, touched himself as he thought about Brienne’s mouth on his and her hands on him, but today he’s just so tired he could fall asleep — Lysa Tully was the fourth person, January _is_ a good month for customers after all. Schools start again, the husbands all go work out of town or find time for their mistresses again, and he suddenly doesn’t need to look at his expenses _as_ closely as he does in November and December.

He makes the shower as short as possible, dries himself off, brushes his teeth, goes downstairs, bolts the door, then turns off the lights and slips inside _his_ room, not — not the one with white walls. He locks the door there as well, he has since Cersei showed up last time, not that it would stop her, he thinks, but — better than nothing. He shudders, and not because of the cold, as he slips under the covers. The new quilt is heavier than Aunt Genna’s, warmer, softer —

He sighs, reaches for his small planner on the nightstand.

Shit. Shit. He was hoping he’d be free tomorrow, but he’s _not_ — Selyse Baratheon _again_ , then fucking Tarly, then that fucking creep Lothar Frey, he feels dirty just _thinking_ about him. He turns the page over. Renly Baratheon booked the entire night because _of course_ he can only pretend to be into his fiancé and not her brother for so long before he needs to fuck his issues away and he certainly can’t go to a woman. The next there’s fucking Amerei once-Frey-now-Lannister, and doesn’t he wish his father knew that his _cousin’s wife_ is fucking _him_ because her husband thinks about volunteering with the parish more than he thinks about her, and —

Fuck. When _Sandor Clegane_ is the person on his list of appointments that he dreads seeing the least, then it means things are really _fucked_ , but — never mind _that_.

He turns the page. Oh, _good_ , he’s free on Friday, at least. He considers calling Brienne, she left her landline, but three AM is _not_ the time for social calls. Still —

He could go to the bookshop tomorrow, couldn’t he, and as he turns off the light, looking at the barely begun copy of _Cannery Row_ on his nightstand, he can’t help feeling warmer, and not just because he doesn’t have a used up quilt anymore. He burrows under the covers, wondering _when_ the other side of the bed started feeling empty and not blissfully free, and thinking that at least tomorrow he might see her again for fifteen minutes and wishing he didn’t feel like a fucking fourteen year old about it, except that _when_ did he ever get to be fourteen years old about _anything_?

 _Never_ , a small voice tells him.

He closes his eyes. _Friday._ He has to manage until Friday. Can’t be too hard, can it?

— —

The next morning, he wakes up with cold sweat burning all over his face and half-screaming his lungs out, feeling Cersei’s fingers on his arm even if the red signs are not hers, not _now_ , not ever again if he can help it, and — he shivers as the morning chill hits his skin as he gets out of bed, but he needs to be out of it, he needs to be _out_ , and he hates that even in his damned place and his damned room with the locked door

( _and that he covered with all the damned movie posters she used to hate and told him to put down, they were juvenile, same as the music he liked, same as everything he seemed to enjoy that she didn’t, same as his short-lived dreams of doing something_ useful _in college)_

she can somehow find her way in.

He puts on a shirt and a sweater, turns on the heater, goes downstairs, opens the fridge.

There are still a few of those pancakes she made left. He eats them ravenously, the sugar-sweet syrupy sauce hitting the back of his tongue, and so what if it’s been four days but he already feels a black hole opening up in his stomach knowing he won’t see her for real for another three and wishing he could wake up every morning to _her_ face and not an empty bed.

It’s a nice dream.

He doesn’t delude himself that it’s going to remain this way. She’s young and she’s only recoiling from a bad hit, but the moment she realizes she can be better than this fucking place she’ll leave, and she _should_ , and he —

He shakes his head.

His best years are gone, Cersei ruined him, and he’s thirty-three and hoping he keeps his good looks enough to keep on paying rent for the next ten years. She deserves better. She deserves _so much_ better, he thinks, throwing the plate in the kitchen sink and washing it before it goes bad, and she seems to actually like _him_ , and he’s not going to delude himself that it’s going to last.

Still —

He goes upstairs, washes, dresses, puts on his coat and locks the door behind him again.

He walks all the way up to the bookshop. It should take him enough time.

— —

He hates his street.

Oh, he chose it exactly because even years ago it was abandoned and he picked the one house at the end of it so no one would bother or show up unless they meant to, and it was convenient, but he still hates it — he hates how dead it is, he hates being surrounded by empty shells of other houses that once were probably brimming with people inside it, not the way _his_ own had been

( _his house was huge and cold and all red and gold and it felt oppressive, only his brother’s room ended up not being so, but the rest,_ the rest _—_ )

but with those ideas of families that he learned never work out if not in extremely rare cases.

The white snow crunches under his boots. His arm hurts. Of course it hurts. He should have charged her more than twenty-five, but it’s not like until now he ever gave much of a fuck, and it was just to prove the point that they couldn’t do _anything_ to him just because they paid for it.

At least most of his clients get that.

Cersei never had, not that she ever paid him.

Sometimes, he’s walked this same street at night, in summer time, and no one would ever show up for hours. He always felt like he was chasing something. He never quite found out _what_ , same as he has felt since he slammed the manor’s door behind him years ago.

He makes his way towards the end, down the hill’s slope, not that it’s very tall anyway, and walks into town proper. No one looks his way, of course they don’t. His fingers shake in his pockets, those twenty-five bucks of Lysa Tully’s still buried inside them because he didn’t bother to change them. Sometimes he wishes some kind of storm would just rip apart this dumb town with its barely held-together houses _and_ his father’s huge, cold and tacky manor, and he knows it never will because no storms ever show up here, and it will never drag away the people glaring at him in the light of the day and knocking on his door at night and then slipping him a fifty or a hundred or a two hundred.

If only they weren’t such hypocrites, whispering behind his back even when they know he can hear.

But then again, when has he ever given a fuck? They can think what they want. It’s not like he’s not a complete mess for entire other reasons.

It’s not nine thirty yet. The bookshop isn’t open, most likely.

He finds a bench, then slips his tiny _Spoon River_ copy out of his coat’s pocket, it’s been there for a while.

There’s a piece of paper inside, along with a pen, and he turns it on the right page.

 _2_ , he writes on the top of the piece of paper. Then he copies carefully the _other_ part of the other poem he had bookmarked.

_SHE loved me._

_Oh! how she loved me I never had a chance to escape_

_From the day she first saw me._

He considers going forward, but there’s no need —

 _This is how it is now_ , he scribbles, hating his terrible handwriting, and then folds the piece of paper and slips it inside his coat.

He doesn’t know if he’s doing this right. He doesn’t know _how_ to do this right. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen a movie he liked that showed you how to do it right. But she seems to like it, and maybe she’s as bad off as him except that she doesn’t have a sister who drained everything good out of her and left what’s left to deal with the consequences. He stands up, heads for the bookshop, taking it slow, and finds it open. Mr. Harlaw isn’t in, thankfully, and so he slips inside, the bell ringing.

“How can I help —” Brienne starts, professionally, and then her face loses the neutral expression and her lips show a hint of teeth as she smiles at him, and shit how did it happen, what is she seeing, no one that’s not Tyrion is happy to just _see_ him. “Hey,” she says, her voice dropping lower. “How are you?”

“Could do worse,” he replies, technically not lying. “Uh, two things.”

“Sure.”

“I don’t have appointments on Friday.”

“How interesting,” she smiles, “I had nothing in plans.”

“So, uh, you would —”

“Of course I would,” she says. “And the second thing?”

“Well, I’m here. And — the ones you gave me actually don’t look _so_ sad and I realized maybe it wouldn’t be a bad idea, so — can you find me something _not_ that dramatic to read, or what?”

She stares at him. “I imagine in the same vein as the others?”

“Possibly,” he says, and usually shame would burn his tongue with it if he admitted that he’s still not sure he wants to try anything longer than two hundred and fifty pages, but not with her, it’s different, it’s _different_ as she nods and heads under the _B_ section and slides him an old, used paperback with _The Devil’s Dictionary_ printed on the red cover.

“Three bucks,” she says, “and I think it’d be your thing.”

He slides her a five. “Keep the change. I’ll trust your tastes.” Shit, he wants to kiss her, he wants to touch her full, full lips with his, now that she’s so close and he can smell that lavender perfume on her, the only sort of feminine thing he’s ever seen her indulge in, but he can’t, he _can’t_ —

“Good,” she says, and her eyes go wide as he slips the piece of paper into her hand. “Read it later,” he whispers, and then leaves the shop, and maybe he’s a coward if he stops just out of it so he can see her through the window.

Her rough, long fingers that always feel so good on his skin or in his hair or grasping at his own hands shake as they open his message, and then she grins so widely at reading it that he has to stop looking at it because it’s too much, _too much_ , she thinks she looks ugly and undesirable but to _him_ that smile was brighter than sunlight, brighter than Cersei’s had ever been, prettier than anyone else’s, and she wouldn’t believe him, she wouldn’t, but —

She about _did_ tell him she loved him on New Year’s Eve, and he’s not sure he didn’t dream it as he had other times, but she spoke that into his ear and it doesn’t matter if it was a poem because he told her the same with another one, and not for the first time in the last few months he wishes he was good at anything else that wasn’t fucking because if he was then maybe he could give it up and consider his delusion in which they move in together and she tells that to him when they wake up in the morning and into his skin when she holds him down and every time she does he feels less like he’s suffocating because of his sister’s smooth, long fingers wrapped around his neck.

Too bad that he thinks he’s too old for anything else, at this point.

He sighs as he goes back home.

He needs to put himself in the frame of mind to fuck three people he utterly, deeply loathes by the time nine PM rolls by.

And it won’t be thinking about Brienne that will make _that_ work.

***

Sometimes he wishes it was Selyse’s fucking _husband_ who’d come to his bed, not her. Maybe if he did Jaime could make him realize that he actually _does_ look like he could use a decent fuck in his life _and_ maybe if he did he’d stop making eyes at Davos Seaworth from the other diner in town, the one that’s only open at the evenings. Stannis would have enough guts to just go for it, Jaime thinks, and maybe they’d just stop making eyes at each other, but no.

It has to be _her_ , talking about how much she hates Stannis and how he could never satisfy her in bed while Jaime fucks slowly into her, kisses her neck and nods in all the right places — before, he’d just soldier through it. Now he thinks that she’s too short, she’s too thin, her breasts are too large, her neck is _wrong_.

Never mind.

She pays him after having finished her rant. Jaime doesn’t tell her that if he’s right, he’ll divorce her sooner than she thinks.

— —

Randyll Tarly is the second-worst kind of male client.

Never mind that he’s here just because he gets off on the idea of fucking his boss’s son. He’s a lousy lay, he’s also an unrepentant asshole, and at the fifth minute of _what does your father think of you, do you ever wonder that_ , accompanied with a slap to his face, Jaime pretends to moan in all the right places and thinks that Brienne would have caressed his face instead.

— —

Lothor Frey is one of the sub-categories of worst kind of male client.

As in, the kind who is here on a power trip, who has some issue with his asshole father that he wants to pound away inside him, and who pays extra to be _rough_.

If only his face looked any decent, Jaime thinks, and so instead he thinks of how gentle Brienne always is when she lays him down on the other bed, the one that’s just his and _his_ alone, and he earns his money instead.

— —

Renly Baratheon is _not_ a bad kind of male client.

He’s not bad looking, though not Jaime’s type whatsoever, and he’s never too rough and he always pays upfront and he never had to ask for extra after.

It’s just that he’s hopelessly into men and his family has decided he has to marry Margaery Tyrell when the fact that Renly only has eyes for her brother is… not a badly kept secret in town, fair enough, Jaime only noticed because he ran into them at Tyrion’s diner and it was obvious but they did manage to keep it hidden enough. Obviously none of them acted on it, and Renly is _hopelessly into men_ , and Jaime doesn’t look like Loras Tyrell at all but once Renly told him they have the same look in their eyes, whatever it means. He always tips well.

Jaime never told him to just tell Loras and run off to New York or San Francisco or wherever the hell they wouldn’t need to hide because it’s not his business.

But now he wishes he had the guts to, because he hates seeing his own eyes in other people’s, and that’s what he sees when Renly looks down at him, because after all if he can’t be with Loras Tyrell, Jaime can’t _be_ with Brienne the way he wishes he could.

He keeps his mouth shut and takes the extra ten of tip.

His mouth feels so bitter that he has to brush his teeth for fifteen minutes, and it’s not because Renly paid him extra to swallow.

— —

His cousin’s wife is the worst kind of female client.

It’s not even that she’s vapid.

It’s that she’s here because in her head it’s some kind of revenge on Lancel, and on one side he kind of pities her because she didn’t choose that marriage and it was all convenience and corporate bullshit on his father’s side and hers, and everyone’s known for years that Lancel was more interested in spiritual matters than carnal

( _since after a vacation that he spent with them and he was always around Cersei and Jaime never had the guts to ask_ )

but no one gave a fuck before they got them married. So every time she comes she expects him to perform to the best of his standard, to spend hours in between her legs, and she always asks if he’ll make an exception to the no kissing rule, and before he said no because he thought there would be no one after Cersei and he wanted to keep _something_ separate from his job, and now he’s saying no because as far as he’s concerned Brienne’s the only person he wants to _kiss_ , if she can’t be the only person he’ll have sex with if he could choose.

He doesn’t kiss her this time either. She offers him extra. He says no and tells her to just help Lancel in the parish, maybe he’ll start noticing her. She snorts and leaves. Yeah, as if.

Two days.

Two days and he won’t have to use _this_ bed and it will be with the one person he wants in it.

— —

Sandor Clegane is _not_ the person he’d have ever imagined would look for his services.

If only, because _his brother_ has been the one client Jaime’s ever had that _almost_ fucking sent him to a hospital, and then he got arrested for actually murdering someone, not for putting Jaime out of work because his face was too bruised to even show up in public, and good thing it had been just bruises and not his teeth like two of his ex-girlfriends. But they met at the man’s trial, a few years ago.

Jaime had asked, _did he do that to you_ , nodding towards the scars ruining the side of Clegane’s face.

 _Who else_ , Clegane had replied, bitterness dropping from his tone.

 _I’m sorry,_ Jaime had replied, meaning it.

It probably showed. When Sandor showed up at his door not long later, he said he usually wouldn’t go for men, but no one else had looked at his face without recoiling before. Jaime had considered it. Then he had let him in because he didn’t give much of a fuck then, same has he hasn’t given much of a fuck about what happens to him until Brienne knocked on his door.

Turns out, there’s a reason why he’s the only one in his list that Jaime doesn’t hate seeing on principle. He always books the entire night, but that’s because he doesn’t get laid too often for obvious reasons. He’s at least Jaime’s type, as in, taller and with larger shoulders and stronger, and he’s had years to make peace with it. He doesn’t want to bother with small talk or worse, fake dirty talk, so they usually just fuck more than once and differently from the worst of his male clients, he’ll use _plenty_ of lubricant when he eases his way in. He used to pay extra to have Jaime touch the left side of his face, back in the day, but he felt like shit taking money for _that_ and so he doesn’t anymore, not that Jaime gives a single fuck about _that_ , not when there wasn’t a single scar on Cersei and that doesn’t make recalling her face any more pleasurable than it is.

“You’ve met someone, haven’t you,” Clegane tells him as he leaves at four in the morning.

“How did you guess?” Jaime doesn’t even try to lie.

“Oh, I don’t know, you don’t look like you’re dead inside when you open the door. Fucking think about that. But good for you.”

Jaime should just nod and let him go. But —

“She knows about _my_ sister.”

( _They might have shared horror stories about their siblings once, when they were both drunk and met at Davos’s diner._ )

“She does?”

He shrugs. “She apparently doesn’t care. Maybe you should look around. You’re not so bad, let me tell you.”

“Fuck you,” Clegane snorts, and doesn’t slam the door on his way out.

_You don’t look dead inside when you open the door_.

Huh. Who’d have known.

Maybe he does. Maybe he doesn’t.

He just — showers, dresses, gets under the covers, and thinks, _tomorrow she’ll be here._

\---

_Are you sure?_ , Brienne asks after he tells her that he wants to —

He wants to —

He can’t explain to her, _Cersei used to do that sometimes and I felt like I would go down with her and then I always felt her hands around my neck alwaysalwaysalways, but if you do that it’s not the same, if you do that it’s different_ , and so he just tells her yes, he’s sure, she shouldn’t press too much, he’ll stop her if something feels wrong but _please_ he needs it —

 _All right_ , Brienne agrees, and oh but the way her eyes go wide and are so, so blue as she stares down at him and takes off her clothes before she takes off _his_ , and he kind of expects her to just go for it but no, he should have known better, because then she leans down and kisses him and fuck, he had missed kissing people so much but he’s glad he kept _that_ for himself because now it’s the one thing he can give to her, regardless of how _little_ it might be worth, and she doesn’t touch his neck until she’s brought him off with her mouth once and she’s ran her tongue over his chest

(and he hopes she never asks him _how_ he got the scars she seems to like to kiss so much, because he doesn’t want to tell her how his father once put out those cigarettes on him because he took the blame when Tyrion broke one dumb vase that was some kind of family heirloom, and then he’s not thinking about that anymore)

once, twice, thrice, and by then he thinks he already has started to lose track of how long it’s been before she clears her throat and she asks, _do you still_ —, and he says _please_ , and so she puts her fingers around his neck, only touching the sides of her throat, and maybe they’re long and rough and not slender but she presses down so delicately, with such care, her blue eyes staring down into his, and he feels short of breath but that’s how it should be, that’s _how it should be_ , and she presses more and more until he’s gasping and then she lets him breathe and then pushes _again_ —

And he hadn’t asked for _that_ , but the way she makes sure he does get to breathe once in a while as she looks down at him _intently_ is doing things to him he never knew he could feel again, and then she presses again, and _again_ , and all of his breath is caught in his throat as his blood rushes downwards and it feels so good he could explode for it, and she’s still holding his neck _so gently_ —

He gasps as she loosens her hold, and then she does it again like the other time, moving just one hand around his throat as the other jerks him off, and this time she times it a bit better and he feels like his entire body is on fire as she moves her fingers around his dick at the same time she presses on tighter to the sides of his neck, and her hand is large enough that she can do it without even brushing his throat, and it doesn’t feel constricting, it doesn’t feel like she wants to drag him down, no, it’s all the contrary, it feels like she wants to pull him _up_ —

He feels like he could melt into the mattress and maybe he _is_ , but it doesn’t matter because she’s right over him and she’s moved her hand away from his neck and then she’s cut off his air with her mouth instead and he kisses her back like he’s starved for it even if he hasn’t been for the last hour or so, but he will be tomorrow, won’t he, and he knows he’s coming against her hand because his entire chest is spasming in pleasure and she’s kissing his name into his mouth every time she moves back before leaning in, and he wants to tell her that he loves her he loves her he _loves her_ for what it’s worth

( _not much, he supposes, but_ something)

and then her hand cups his neck and presses on its back so very gently, and he feels too heavy to move but it’s fine because she wraps herself around his back, her mouth pressed against his hair —

He closes his eyes and doesn’t sleep for now, just feels her heartbeat against his chest as he turns in her arms, and what if he hopes he wakes up to see the other side of the bed not empty?

His sister might have called him the stupidest in the family and maybe he _is_ , if he’s entertaining his little, harmless delusion all over again —

But then she kisses his forehead and he forgets all about it.

Later. Maybe.

 _Later_.

***

_ABNORMAL, adj. Not conforming to standard. In matters of thought and conduct, to be independent is to be abnormal, to be abnormal is to be detested. Wherefore the lexicographer adviseth a striving toward a straiter resemblance to the Average Man than he hath to himself. Whoso attaineth thereto shall have peace, the prospect of death and the hope of Hell._

He laughs, unable to keep it in, and patience if Tyrion’s other three clients glare at him.

He had meant to go on with the second to last novel she gave him, but the week-end has been shitty and he doesn’t have the force of will to wade through pages of letters crawling across the page and doubling themselves over right now, he can if he puts effort in it but he can’t right now, and so the book made of short, quick definitions sounded like a way better choice, and he thinks he knows why she gave him _that_ , and —

_To be independent is to be abnormal_.

He doesn’t know if he ever thought about it like _that_. Not really. But — it’s a point, isn’t it? And now maybe he gets why Tyrion always spent his time reading — knowing that some guy at the end of the nineteenth century would point _that_ out is making him feel slightly less shitty about the glares he’s getting right now.

His brother slides into the opposite seat not long later.

“Well, _shit_ ,” he says as he notices the title. “She really knows you well, doesn’t she?”

“What —”

“Come on, as much as I could see you buying that for yourself just based on the title, no one knows it exists if they don’t sell books. But all things considered, you _would_ like it.”

He shrugs. “What if I do?”

“You won’t find me judging you for liking perfectly good satire. What’s with the split lip?”

Well, shit, he _did_ have to guess.

He shrugs. “Lysa Tully has _anger issues_ ,” he whispers, figuring people shouldn’t hear. Not that anyone around is her friend, at least.

“Jesus,” Tyrion sighs, “and can’t she solve them somewhere else?”

He shrugs again. “She paid extra.”

“Oh, that _really_ makes me feel better about it,” Tyrion deadpans. “Anyway, that’s probably me guessing things, but if I were you, I’d take next weekend free and bring your girlfriend somewhere. Or have her bring you somewhere, I don’t know, but — just do it.”

“… Why?” He asks, his blood running cold.

“Father is still in mind of opening that factory and he made that abundantly clear at yesterday’s family lunch that I couldn’t skip on, and he dropped a few hints that someone else might show up at your place trying to convince you to re-think your life choices, so… if I were you I wouldn’t be there in the weekend.”

He breathes out, glad that his hands are wrapped around the book because they don’t have to shake if they are.

“Thanks,” he says. “I’ll — I’ll see what I can do.”

“See that you do,” Tyrion says, patting his arm as he goes back to the counter.

Jaime lets his hands shake after he’s gone, remembering the time when he was seventeen and his fucking thrice-damned father slipped the keys of the family bright red Cadillac in his fingers and told him that _he_ would have to take his place and his tongue was too tied in the back of his throat to tell him that no, he didn’t want it, Cersei should have had it, _she_ was the one who wanted it more than anything else, and how he always looked at Jaime in expectation and then bigger and bigger disappointment —

And then there was the time he left, where he screamed he couldn’t work for Aerys, he _couldn’t_ , and his father’s eyes were cold and green and as icy as Cersei’s had been since he told her he couldn’t stay on the side for all his life, and if only he had known he’d have understood even too well why Rhaella Targaryen’s arms and wrists bled and were covered in nail scars, if only he had known —

He opens a page in the middle of the book just to take his mind off it.

_MONEY, n. A blessing that is of no advantage to us excepting when we part with it. An evidence of culture and a passport to polite society. Supportable property._

He laughs again, feeling slightly less tense now, and fuck, maybe he should leave it as a message for anyone his father decides to send his way to change his fucking mind, not that he _will_. His eyes fall downwards, trying to not pay attention to how some of those letters seem to _move_ and turn over themselves —

_MORAL, adj. Conforming to a local and mutable standard of right. Having the quality of general expediency._

Fuck. Maybe he should leave _that_ too, nailed to the door.

Or maybe he should quote it to Selyse Baratheon the next time she goes about how immoral it is that he dares run his activity in public while she most likely thinks about how his mouth was in between her legs not even twelve hours before.

That wouldn’t be a _bad_ idea now, would it.

— —

The bourbon burns his way down Jaime’s throat as he takes a swig, heading home — he bought a bottle from Davos before, today he had no appointments but after what Tyrion said he felt like shit and he couldn’t bring himself to go to the bookshop, as much as he’d have liked to, but a part of him was screaming that she didn’t need to know, never mind how much she _already_ does know — that doesn’t matter.

He hates when he gets like this, when he just wants to forget how he got _here_ and how he could have offered her something good once upon a time and now he can’t, and before then he just would drink and try to forget, and it would never work because then he’d remember how Cersei used to, except that she prefers wine, doesn’t she, and so he never has it —

He takes a second drink.

His street is empty, as usual, no human presence anywhere, as usual, because he had no clients today, and as he sits down on an empty, old swing in an abandoned yard that creaks like a bunch of screeching birds the moment he does, he feels like the entire ground underneath his feet is on fire.

It’s not great bourbon, but he didn’t feel like wasting his whole extra on it. Maybe tomorrow he can go to the bookshop and tell Brienne he wants to be out the whole weekend and maybe he could pay for it this time and it would be three days away from this shithole and his father and most likely his sister who should just leave him the fuck alone already. Shit, he _wants_ to, he wants to like he wants to breathe and he hadn’t thought it could get this bad for _anyone else_ , he had thought that part of him was dead, and then she shows up on his doorstep with those kind blue eyes and badly tied up hair and rough hands and he thinks that he already was a goner _then_ , when she didn’t presume that he’d want her just because she offered payment and didn’t know that he had _wanted_ her the moment he saw her in the proper light of his living room.

He drinks again.

If Cersei were here, she’d do a great job of reminding him everything he already knows. He has years on her, she’s never been with anyone else, she had a future in front of her that she couldn’t make _hers_ just because she’s surrounded by idiots and the system sucks while he hasn’t had one the moment he slammed the door on his father and on any of those pretty torn dreams he might have nurtured for himself, he barely even knows how to talk to anyone but Tyrion at this point, and she only doesn’t because they don’t get her but the moment she left this shit hole of a town they _would_ and everything he can bring to the table is that he can show her a good time, except that lately it’s been more the contrary and he can’t believe she’d give that much of a shit, except she _does_ —

Fuck. He drinks again. He hates it. He hates that he’s only waiting for the other shoe to drop and he thinks that she wants him to meet her fucking father and he doesn’t know if he can do that, he doesn’t —

“Will you share that or not?”

He almost drops the bottle to the ground as he sees Brienne on his right side, sitting on the other swing. She barely fits on it, but that’s not the problem. He wordlessly hands it over with a nod.

She takes a swig.

“Not bad,” she says.

He’s about to ask her if she can even drink, then he realizes that of course she can, it was her birthday ten days ago and it was the twenty-first, except that at times her eyes look so much older than her actual age, he didn’t even think of it.

“Also, you look like shit. You know you can call if you have a problem?” She sounds worried now as she hands him back the bottle, and he feels like dropping it to the ground. He sort of knows. He’s just not adjusted to calling anyone if he feels like shit, especially Tyrion — he doesn’t deserve _more_ melodrama on top of everything.

“Sort of,” he says. “I just don’t know how to lift the phone,” he admits. She looks about to say something. He shakes his head. “Tyrion said my father might be planning shit for the weekend. You think we could— go somewhere? Just if you want to. I can move my appointments, if I even have any, but —”

Her hand covers his free one. “Of course I want to,” she says, her voice so soft, he wants to cry at how much, people don’t talk _softly_ to him, they just don’t —

“Tell you what,” she goes on, “there’s a drive-in Bridgeton. We can go on Friday evening and come back on Sunday and spend a couple of days there, or we can just drive around after. It sucks and it’s cold but —”

“Yes,” he interrupts, “yes, I’m absolutely down with it, and does it mean that if we’re at a _drive-in_ —”

She laughs. “We _did_ fuck in my car once, didn’t we?”

They did, he remembers fondly, oh _they did_ , and for a moment he thinks, _and what if_ —

Shit.

 _Shit_ , he has issues, he has _fucking issues_ and he doesn’t know how her eyes turn darker blue as he whispers, _and what if I wore that dress for it_ — anyone else would have just stood up and left but she’s breathing faster and saying she’s game for it if they’re careful about it, and he grasps at her hand tighter, and he doesn’t know how to tell her anymore, he doesn’t know how to say it if he doesn’t slip her notes because it feels like uttering those words without intermediaries would split him open —

“Is being out here what you really want?” She asks a moment later, breaking his reverie.

“No,” he answers at once, and he should feel scared of how he _can’t_ lie to her, but it doesn’t matter —

“I figured. So what do you want?”

_I want to go back in time and take better decisions and never look at Cersei the way I used to, I want to open books and read them properly so I wouldn’t feel like a complete failure because I couldn’t accomplish even that and we both know those notes I give you have inverted letters written down, too, and no one does that at my damn age, do they, and I want to be halfway the person you’d deserve and I want you to have someone whole and not what came out of years of other people taking and taking until there was very little left —_

“Could you stay the night?” He asks, trying to not let _any_ of that slip out.

“Yes,” she says at once.

“Uh,” he says, not quite looking at her even if he knows it’s ridiculous, “would it be all right if we didn’t —”

“Jaime, I don’t _need_ to fuck to want to spend time with you,” she says, not unkindly, and it’s not the first nor the last time she’ll say it and he can barely believe it still, but when she holds out a hand he takes it and when they reach his place his fingers are trembling as he opens the door. He throws his coat to the side, waits for her to do the same and then he stumbles his way upstairs, Brienne behind him, and he hates how relieved he feels the moment the door is locked and they’re both curled against each other under that new, warm quilt, and tomorrow he has Hother Umber booked for the entire night and the mere idea of it makes him want to retch, so he’ll just try to recall how her hands feel on his hips now and think that he gets to have three days with her if he just holds on until the weekend.

Her fingers are so gentle in his hair that he half-wants to cry, but he doesn’t want her to worry, and so he doesn’t, and he hopes she doesn’t realize how much better she could be doing for a long, long time.

— —

On Friday, she drives up to his place as they had agreed around four in the afternoon. He bolts the door before dashing into her car as she speeds out of town, and doesn’t he feel relieved with each passing moment they get farther and farther from it?

“So,” he asks, throwing his bag in the backseat, “what are we even watching?”

“No idea,” she shrugs, “there’s no schedule on the newspaper, but it’s also what, three counties over? Not that we have to watch the movie if we don’t care.”

That’s true, too, he thinks, smiling at the thought. “If you stop for gas,” he says, “would you mind picking somewhere with the bathrooms outside the store?”

“Sure,” she says, and he can see her throat tightening, because she _knows_ why he asked, hasn’t she, “do you need to change?”

“Maybe.” He’s delighted to see her cheeks flush.

“Then I definitely don’t mind.”

She stops not long later, the next gas station isn’t far and the bathrooms are indeed outside, and he immediately takes advantage of the fact that it’s empty to slip into the women’s bathroom. Maybe a thrill runs down his spine as he closes the door without anyone having caught him. He changes into the blue dress quickly, and good thing it’s long enough to cover his boots, then grins to himself again as he slips out of the bathroom and checks the mirror over the sinks — good. It’s still empty. He quickly applies some blue eyeliner that he has at the house for obvious reasons, then opens the door to walk back out. The woman coming in from outside doesn’t bat an eyelid as he passes by. That — that makes him feel good if only for the thrill of actually not being recognized which is a thing he _wishes_ would happen back home, and then he runs inside the car just to have Brienne _gape_ at him the moment he closes the door.

“So,” he grins after she hasn’t said a thing for a while, “enjoying the view?”

“Keep on asking rhetorical questions, Lannister,” she blurts as she starts the car and drives away, but he can see that she’s turned on, and honestly, he had no clue she’d be when he asked but turns out she was and he _did_ like wearing the damned dress with her a lot more than he ever did when he had to with other clients, and it’s just that other than the thrill of doing something his family would hate him for _even more_ there’s the fact that maybe he likes looking at himself in the mirror and seeing someone _that_ different, and maybe something’s _wrong_ with him, but he can’t bring himself to give a fuck about _that_.

— —

Bridgeton has a double feature night for the entire week or so it seems — the first movie is a classic, the second is a recent release. He doesn’t know anything about _Thoroughly Modern Millie_ but he did like _Stagecoach_ when he watched it years ago, so they agree to actually watch the first one and make out during the second, and maybe his blood rushes hot when the kid at the entrance ushering them in takes them for a couple except that he definitely thought _she_ was the guy and he doesn’t know why _that_ makes him feel that thrill run down his spine all over again, but maybe no one knows who they are here and they could pass for a regular couple, and maybe he just likes the idea of breaking norms like _this_ because sure as hell his damned job hasn’t made him feel like that in years. He doesn’t know.

He also doesn’t think he cares.

Brienne parks the car at the back of the field, shuts off the engine and turns to him, smirking slightly as well.

“So, I take you’re enjoying this?”

“And what if I am?”

She shrugs. “I might have, too,” she whispers, “so who am I to say no? I mean, might be the first time in my life someone mistaking me for a guy is exciting and not humiliating.”

He gets _that_ , he does. And she’s grinning as she says it, so she’s probably not lying. Good. Because he _really_ can’t wait to make use of the backseat.

— —

He hadn’t seen that movie in years.

Maybe he should have refreshed his memory, because while he did remember the plot he has forgotten most of the details, and it’s bad enough that he feels his eyes burning when John Wayne’s character —Ringo — offers the chair to Claire Trevor’s — Dallas — without having a clue that she’s in the same line of business as _Jaime_ is and there’s a reason no one has offered her to sit yet, and then they burn _hotter_ when he assumes no one wants to sit next to them because he escaped from prison and tells her you can’t break out of prison and into society in the same week. Then Ringo attempts to leave and Dallas tells him not to with tears in her eyes and he bites down on his tongue.

Shit. He breathes in, trying to not mind it, wishing he remembered how the rest went — he would try to distract Brienne but she seems engrossed and so he doesn’t and keeps on watching the movie, hoping that Brienne doesn’t notice that he flinches whenever Dallas tries to do something nice for anyone in the stagecoach and she gets told off.

He bites his tongue again when she says, _you have to live, no matter what happens_. Shit. This is hitting too close to home. Fuck, what happened now, didn’t he propose to her or _something_ —

Then he _does_ propose.

_“You got no folks... neither have I. Maybe I'm taking a lot for granted... but I watched you with that baby... that other woman's baby... and you looked… well… I still got a ranch across the border. It's a nice place... a real nice place... trees... grass... water... a cabin half-built… a man could live there... and a woman. Will you go?”_

Fuck. _Fuckfuckfuck_ —

_“You don't know me! You don't know who I am!”_

_"I know all I want to know. You're... the kind of girl a man wants to marry.”_

At _that_ point Dallas turns away and tells him to not talk like that with tears falling down her eye, but it’s too damn late by now — he doesn’t even know how but suddenly a pained noise escapes his throat and his eyes are burning all over again and Brienne’s reached out and grasped his hand, and then thankfully it moves to other people and he manages to gain back some dignity, except that then Dallas goes to the damned doctor to inform him of the marriage proposal —

_“Is it wrong, for a girl like me? If a man and woman are in love, it's all right, ain't it, Doc?”_

And _that_ would have been bad enough, but then they talk a bit and then the doctor stares up at her and —

_“Who am I to tell you what's right or wrong, child? All right, go ahead. Do it, if you can. Good luck.”_

Shit.

 _Shit_ , he’s pretty sure he must have smudged eyeliner all over his face or _something_ and he’s crushing her hand for how tight he’s holding on to it, and Brienne’s told him to just get into the backseat and he does at once while Dallas tries to convince Ringo to escape, and a moment later she’s gotten out of the car and inside from the one door that works, and they manage to arrange themselves so that she has her back against the door and he’s in the middle of her legs with his back against her chest and that was _not_ how he had envisioned the evening going.

“Hey,” Brienne says a moment later, “do you want to _talk_ about it?”

Right.

 _Talking_ about things.

Sounds easy. Sounds _absolutely_ easy, except that it’s not what _anyone_ does where he comes from and he’s shit at doing it in the first place mostly because he got along the way that most people aren’t interested in what _he_ has to say, but if he wants a chance in hell of the two of them lasting beyond winter maybe he should learn, and he _did_ talk to her the first night after they kissed, didn’t he, and so he takes a deep breath.

“I just,” he says, “the entire thing was, uh, remarkably accurate. When it comes to people not wanting to sit next to you and so on. But then they had to do _that_ and I just, she’s there worrying that a woman like her can’t, well, have what the other one has and instead he’s there telling her she _could_ and — this makes no sense. Shit, I’m sorry —”

“Don’t,” she interrupts him. “It — it makes sense. I mean, uh. He doesn’t really think he has many chances at it either. And he can’t propose straight, for that matter. Fuck, I spent weeks wondering if I could ask you if you _were_ liking those books I gave you and never found the guts to do it out of nowhere until — until we kissed, I guess. And — you _do_ know how it ends, right?”

“I have vague memories,” he says, feeling slightly better after having heard her say _that_ , too. She drops a kiss at the back of his neck and he wants to melt against her, oh, how does he want it, except he can’t, and so he just leans back a bit more, dropping his head against her neck so that if they turn their head they can see the screen again since she had lowered down her seat before, enough that they could. By now he’s lost part of the plot, enough that people are shooting guns already, and at least it’s mildly distracting… that is, until they get to the damned town and Ringo finds out that Dallas does, in fact, fuck for money.

 _“I asked you to marry me, didn't I?”_ , Ringo asks her as she expects him to just leave, and then —

_“I'll never forget you asked me, Kid. That's something.”_

Shit. He never asked for a damned movie from the damned _thirties_ to make his stomach flip on itself, but then Ringo holds out his wrists to her —

 _“See them scars? Handcuffs... Scars wear off, Dallas. I ain't gonna give you a chance to forget me. You wait here,”_ he says, and then he goes off to fight the damned people who killed his family and Jaime’s pretty damned sure that the screen isn’t blurry because it started raining — which it _has_ , just not much —, and then he kills them and _wants to get himself arrested_ , of course he does, and then instead the sheriff sends them away and _saves them from the blessings of civilization_ as they ride off into the goddamned sunrise and unbidden, he thinks _would we even ever get to do that_ , and he hates that he’s thought that because it means he’s considering it and some part of him thinks they might actually _do it_ at some point when he shouldn’t even be entertaining the thought —

Brienne’s fingers brush against his wrist. Oh. There’s another bruise there, but it’s nothing out of the ordinary when Hotor Umber is concerned, and he booked just a few days ago. He breathes in relief when she wraps her fingers around it, without pressing or pushing, and the credits are rolling when she clears her throat.

“You know,” she says, “I — I never told you this, but at this point I think I should. You _do_ know that I don’t care, right?”

He _knows_ that she doesn’t, or at least he always figured she didn’t because otherwise it’d make no sense that she’d be here, but hearing her say it, he realizes that maybe he hadn’t known… as much as he had thought.

“ _How_ can you not?” He finally asks, figuring he should just get it off his chest. “You should. And you could do better —”

She shakes her head. “I care that people seem to think they have you figured out because of it, I care that I don’t think it makes you happy and I care that it seems like none of the people you fuck give a damn about you either way, and I don’t like that you’ll shrug _these_ off —” She raises his wrist, squeezing it, “— like they’re nothing, but the job in itself doesn’t mean _anything_ either way. I wouldn’t care if you liked it.”

“I don’t,” he immediately admits, because there’s no point in hiding it. “I never did. I mean, it — felt good for a while for petty reasons, but I didn’t _like_ it. That’s not the point, though. The point is that I don’t see any other option on the horizon.” He shrugs. “And you know, if — if we hadn’t — done this, I mean, I still would have never forgotten that you asked me whether I’d take you on as a client regardless of whether you paid me or not, that first time.”

“That’s nowhere as romantic as marriage proposals,” she snorts, drawing him closer, and Jaime’s aware that the next movie has started but he honestly can’t give a damn now. “But I’ll take it.”

“I’m not expecting _marriage proposals_ ,” he laughs, “and who’d even take me seriously for such a thing? Come on. But if you want to be _romantic_ here…”

She shakes her head, he can feel it, but she’s also smiling against his neck, her hands grasping at his waist —

“I can hear you deflecting,” she says, “but I also don’t like to force people to discuss anything they don’t want. Would you rather have me doing something more _active_?”

“And what if I do?” He asks, feeling like he could kiss her _just_ for this, just because she didn’t push when she could have.

She moves a hand to his hair, turning his head so they can kiss, and he moans into her mouth as she sits up straighter as far as she can and turns them over carefully, her other hand reaching downwards under the dress, and this time he had underwear on for obvious reasons — Brienne’s hands take it off him a moment later, dropping it on the ground. Then —

“Can you move that leg down?”

He does — it was the one nearest the edge of the seat — and then she grins and moves her head under the skirt and oh, _oh_ , a moment later she has her mouth on him, but before doing anything that’s more than licking at the head of his dick she moves his other leg on her shoulder, lifting his hips up slightly, and he’d like to know _why_ , except that then she moves away enough to spit on her fingers, he can hear that even if he can’t see her, and then —

And then she’s sucking him off again while her fingers slide inside his ass, and at this point he couldn’t give a single fuck about the movie they’re supposed to be watching if he tried because her mouth is hot and wet and _perfect_ around him and her fingers are pushing in all the right places and he doesn’t mind if it’s a bit rough, and he tries to not be too loud but it’s hard when she’s trying to bring him off with such intent, and fuck but she got _good_ at this regardless of how bad she _thought_ she was in the beginning

( _she wasn’t, she just didn’t have practice, but the way she used to bring him off so intently more than made up for it because he could let himself believe that she did want_ him _and then it turned out he was right and she did, she_ did)

and he lets his hands reach her hair through the soft, soft cloth of the dress, and fuck but he likes that she’s letting it grow, he likes that since they — they’ve been doing _this_ she seems to walk a bit straighter and she doesn’t seem so self-conscious anymore, because she shouldn’t be, not _her_ , and if other people can’t see it their damned problem. Shit, he might not be the sharpest tool in the damned box but at least he _can_ see how much she’s worth and that anyone that ever made sure she’d end up at his door deserves a punch in the teeth, even if he’s selfishly glad of it because otherwise she’d have never come to his damned place —

She stops, moves back, raises the skirt just a bit — her cheeks are flushed, her mouth is sticky and _fuck_ , he feels like he’s going to faint —

“Stop overthinking,” she says, winking at him, and then she’s back at sucking him off while her rough, long fingers keep on pushing inside him and he decides that she’s right and he should just enjoy it, and so he closes his eyes and only thinks about how good her mouth feels and her hands feel and maybe he wishes he could flee civilization with her and it’s never going to happen, but does it even matter now?

 _No_ , he thinks as he closes his eyes and moans her name and comes inside her mouth, white-hot pleasure rushing through his veins as the rain falls gently against the car’s windows, _it doesn’t_ , and fuck but if he lifts his eyelids up just slightly the world seems bright for a moment, bright as Brienne’s pretty huge blue eyes that somehow always look at him as if he’s _worth_ it and so what if he’s not ready to give it up?

He’s not. He might never be. It might be a problem soon. But right now it doesn’t matter, not as he spills inside her mouth and she resurfaces from under the dress with a smug, smug look on her face that suits her better than she thinks, and he should return the favor and he says it, but then she shakes her head and leans back down on the seat while he presses against it, trying to make the both of them fit on it. She wipes her hand on her shirt, then moves it back to his face, caressing the smooth skin underneath, and moves closer —

“I — I don’t know what the hell I’m supposed to do with my life and I don’t know if I’ll figure it out any time soon,” she whispers, as if she’s confessing some kind of secret, “but I _know_ we’re not… wrong. I just do. And I don’t think I’m going to change my mind anytime soon. All right?”

“All right,” he nods, words suddenly failing him as she sneaks an arm around his waist and he moves his around her shoulders, and what if for a moment he thinks that it feels like for the first time in his life he can actually trust someone to hold him up rather than the contrary

( _oh, he_ does _trust his brother, but he’d never want to dump his crap on_ him _out of all people and so he tries not to)_

and when she tells him that they can find a motel for the next couple days he immediately says yes, not caring for the music coming from the screen but caring about how warm and _real_ she feels against him, and maybe for the next couple of days he can forget how much he hates his life when she’s not in it.

— —

By the time Sunday arrives and they have to drive back home, to his chagrin, they did go to the damned drive in all three nights for thankfully less emotionally taxing movies, they haven’t fucked outside her car, he’s read enough of _Cannery Row_ after she fell asleep with an arm around his legs and it’s probably fucking sad to realize that this is the first time in his entire life where he feels like he can have a relationship with someone that’s not his damned brother that _doesn’t_ require fucking all the damned time.

Shit. He had just forgotten you could be with other people _without_ necessarily fucking, even if he does want to with _her_ , very much. Just — it’s nice to know it _doesn’t_ have to happen. He sighs, taking out his planner — obviously since he wasn’t here for three days he had to push every single appointment during the week. Shit.

“Bad news?” Brienne asks, obviously feeling that his mood is spiraling downwards.

“Nah, just… shit, I have the entire next week full.”

“You don’t sound too enthusiastic,” she says, and he has to laugh because of course he doesn’t.

“Believe me, I’m not,” he sighs, “but we all have to pay the bills, I guess.”

“You know you can drop by the bookshop if you want? It’s not like we have that many customers.”

She doesn’t know that he _wants_ to every damned day but never does as much as he’d like because he doesn’t want to look like he’s trying too hard, if he even knows what trying too hard means here.

“I might,” he says. “I just might. But — a week is long, you know.”

He doesn’t want to say _I don’t want to just see you behind a counter for the entire damned following seven days_ , but it’s obvious she guessed it because her eyes have just turned softer, and — well, fuck it. He looks back down at the planner. Thursday he has _only_ Hothor Umber. For three hours, but —

“Unless you drop by at eleven thirty on Thursday,” he blurts, and she smiles as she says she just might, and when he walks back to his door he merely shrugs when he sees that he has five new letters in the mail and all of them have a Lannister sigil closing them.

He throws them all in the trash after locking the door behind him.

Fuck _that_.

— —

“Who did _that_?” She asks the moment he opens the door at eleven thirty sharp on Thursday. He lets her in.

“Professional secret,” he winces, feeling his mouth hurt, but it’s not as if he can hide that the entire left side of it is bruised and that he spat blood for two minutes before she knocked.

“Jesus,” Brienne shakes her head, turning his face under the living room’s light, “just let me get you some ice.”

“Good idea,” he agrees, “can’t look too bad tomorrow.”

“Oh, as if _that_ is the problem,” she sighs, and goes to get the ice while he sits on the sofa. She puts it on his cheek and he groans in gratitude, and she says nothing as she holds it there until it’s not too cold anymore. She puts it away and then starts cleaning off dried blood from his cheek, slow, and he almost wants to tell her to stop being _that_ gentle but it feels too nice and so he doesn’t.

He breathes in.

“Hothor Umber,” he mutters.

“What?”

“You asked who it was, I just told you.”

“Christ, and does he have anger issues, too?”

“You wouldn’t believe it,” he admits, his hand searching for her free one. She tangles their fingers together as she keeps on cleaning his face off.

“Are you sure he won’t get worse?” She finally asks.

“Nah,” he shakes his head. “I’ve seen worse.”

“… Who?”

He shrugs again, waiting for her to put away the rag. “Gregor Clegane. Before he was arrested, of course. Turned my face so purple I couldn’t work for a month, nice times. Also sprained a wrist. Of course no one at the police even wanted to hear me.”

“ _What_ ,” she blurts, sounding outraged.

“Yeah, well. Wasn’t important enough. Then they got him for fucking murder, so I guess I got lucky.”

She nods, her fingers brushing over his cheek again, then she moves closer. “You look like you’re definitely done for the night,” she says, but not unkindly.

“Hey, I’m _not_ if I don’t —”

“Jaime, _please_. You look wiped. How many in the last four days?”

He shrugs, counting in his head. “Some sixteen. Including people returning.”

“I think you need a decent shower more than anything else,” she says, and she’s _right_ , she _is_ , but he doesn’t want her to leave —

“I never said I was going to,” she goes on, and shit, did he talk out loud? That asshole _really_ must have hit him harder than he thought. “Hey, don’t you have a bath upstairs?”

“Uh, in the clients’ room. Why?”

“Because I think you need to _rest_ ,” she says, and then holds him up by the arm and helps him upstairs and given that he almost falls on his feet maybe it was a good idea. He sits down on the toilet while she opens the faucets and wait, is she _seriously_ —

“I could have taken a shower,” he protests weakly.

“You could have, but it’s less relaxing,” she says, not seeming like she minds at all, and so he lets her ruin the damned bath and by the time she’s done it smells of damn lavender, which he picked as the only soap for the clients’ bathroom because it seems like the only smell everyone likes, and he takes off his clothes before slipping inside the tub. He thinks he’s never used it, but he never uses _this_ bathroom. Now, though, he’s regretting it because it feels _nice_ , and she was right, just ten seconds inside warm water are already doing wonders to make him feel slightly less miserable. She laughs when he makes a pleased sound the moment he moves his head back, and damn but it shouldn’t feel this good, or like she belongs in this damned bathroom that he loathes using but not _now_ —

“I’ll get a couple things next door,” she says, and he lets her go as he leans back against the porcelain of the tub and tries to enjoy the heat until it lasts. Brienne is back not long later with — _his_ cheap soap from the regular bathroom and the less cheap hair shampoo he uses, but he can’t afford washing his hair with crap now, can he? He reaches for both, but she shakes her head and sits on the tub’s side.

“Come on, lean down,” she says, and he does at once and then her hands are on his shoulders, gently rubbing them, finding the tense spots, and then she rubs some of the soap in it and _oh_ but it feels good, same as her hands always do but now it’s another entire feeling somehow, and then she pours some of the shampoo on her palm and he closes his eyes so she can wash his hair and he wants to bite his tongue at how _good_ it feels, and you wouldn’t think she could be _so_ careful with it looking at her but she _is_ and he doesn’t think anyone’s washed his hair in decades at this point.

It should be sad.

But he’s too tired for that, so he closes his eyes again and lets her do it until it’s clean and he’s not smelling like he just spent three hours in bed with a guy who _really_ has issues with his repressed sadism. The water is cold by the time Brienne has rubbed his back again and helped him out of the tub — he takes a pair of clean pajamas from her and puts it on before it hits him _how_ tired he actually is. He tries to not fall down on his own damned knees as he gets out of the bathroom, and he finds her inside his own, obviously wondering if she should put her jacket back on or not.

“Can you stay?” He asks, figuring there’s no point in beating around the bush.

“Sure,” she replies, “but just if you want me to.”

“Please, if it was up to me I’d have you over every damned night instead of ninety percent of _them_.”

“Really,” she says, taking off her jeans and waiting for him to go under the covers, “and who are the lucky ten percent?”

“Professional secret,” he winks at her, moving under the sheet, “but none that you ran into yet.”

“I figured that,” she smiles back, and then she curls against his back and he doesn’t say something extremely embarrassing just because he’s so tired he can’t even talk, but he moves his hand on hers and he relishes the feeling of being in _his_ bed, not feeling still somewhat dirty, and savors the feeling of Brienne’s hands on his waist.

Another three days.

Then he can have normal appointments again.

Then he can have her over properly.

Right.

He can handle it.

He _can_ handle it.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... aaand see you next time ie hopefully in a couple of days with (at least) valentine's day According To These Two and the infamous meeting the parents moment. HAVE FUN ALSO I PRE-EMPTIVELY APOLOGIZE I SWEAR BY THE TIME THIS IS OVER POOR JAIME IS GOING TO BE SOMEWHAT BETTER ADJUSTED THAN THIS. /o\


	5. a moment when the world feels right

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Valentine's Day happens, Cersei shows up being herself, they talk some things out and Jaime meets Brienne's father.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAND here's chapter five. Geez. I'm halfway through sixth now and the last two should happen pretty quickly as soon as I get To The Plot but hey, at least it's not running away from me again. HAVE SOME MORE FUN WITH MORE JAIME POV, I swear this is... somewhat better than the previous one. I guess. Somehow. ;)
> 
> Also: Cersei shows up being herself for a bit in the beginning and she's... her usual self so you're warned in case. And there's more undernegotiated coping sex but it's nothing you haven't seen yet /o\ *saunters vaguely downwards*

He walks out of the town’s only flower shop feeling like Margaery Tyrell has just tried to stare him into spontaneous combustion.

Of course she knows Renly goes to _him_.

It’s also not his fault if he has no other options and it’s February 14th and he made sure to _not_ have appointments today because he’s never — done _it_ , not properly, not with anyone, and Brienne looked delighted when he said they should try and do it like proper couples a few days before, and then she said she had never imagined anyone would want to celebrate it with _her_ and so fuck that, he’s going to buy the damned flowers. He steered clear of roses, he knows she hates them because that asshole Connington bought her some to make fun of her once, and so now he stuck with forget-me-nots the color of her eyes

( _and so what if he hopes that if it goes wrong she doesn’t forget him at least_ )

and white lilies, and so what if Margaery was glaring at him while ringing his purchases and most likely wondering who the fuck he’d be buying them for?

“What,” he said, “I can’t have flowers in the house now?”

She had stopped glaring and only looked down at his money when he handed it to her.

He had wanted to get chocolate, too, but that would require another stare down and if he showed up with flowers at _any_ place that sells chocolate around here people would put two and two together and he’d rather keep things as they are right now. Not that he’s ashamed of it or anything, but the moment people find out _her_ life will turn into a living hell and he doesn’t want that for her, so he supposes the flowers will have to do.

She’s supposed to come over just after the bookshop closes and it’ll be half an hour, so he should get home and change into some decent clothing — he heads for his place, still hating every step of the way, fishing for his keys in his coat’s pocket and shit, he _should_ change it, it’s getting too old by now —

Then he looks up at his doorstep.

“Leave,” he says as he tries to _not_ look at Cersei in the face.

“We should talk,” she says instead, and _no_ , they really shouldn’t. Every time they _talk_ he feels like taking ten scalding showers right after and he doesn’t want to do that today.

“No,” he says, walking up the stairs and trying to move her out of the way without actually shoving her, “we really don’t. And I’m waiting for someone else, so you can save yourself the effort.” He pushes the key into the lock, unbolting the door but not opening it yet.

She seems about to say something, then she notices the flowers. Her mouth curls into an unpleasant grin that makes him almost recoil at the sight — years ago, he’d have never thought he’d ever be disgusted at seeing her face, and here he is.

“Look at that,” she says, “you _really_ did find someone desperate enough to waste time with you?”

He takes the hit. He hopes _he_ hadn’t grimaced at hearing it. “No,” he says, trying to cut it short. “And it’s not your business. How much clearer should I make it?”

“Your business _is_ my business.”

“It hasn’t been for years. For — _leave_ , damn it. I don’t want you here, how much clearer should I make it?”

“That’s what you say. I’m curious, because as far as I know _no one_ in town would be so suicidal to be seen with you, unless —”

She stops, then laughs, and it sounds like fucking nails on a blackboard and he almost feels like throwing up at the sound, _no_ , she can’t have figured it out, she _can’t_ —

“Is she _really_ that unfortunate soul that showed up here in November?”

“I’m not saying either fucking way,” he says. “And I told you I don’t want to talk and that we have nothing to tell each other. Father can go fuck himself, I’m not closing down business, I’m not committing myself, I’m not coming back, and I have plans.”

Cersei stares at him for a long, long moment, and he only holds it because if he didn’t then she’d have the confirmation and he doesn’t want her to, even if he knows she’ll most likely lurk to see if she can find out about who is his mysterious girlfriend. Shit.

“Good luck for when she inevitably gets tired of you, then,” she grins, moving back down the stairs. “I hope at least she’s having fun with you, or I can’t imagine what else she’d see in you.”

“Oh, same as _you_ did once?” He blurts back, and her smile dies at once.

“That was when you knew what was good for you,” she spits back, and then disappears towards her car.

Fuck.

_Fuck_.

He opens the door, walks inside the house, locks it from the inside and then goes to the living room, looking for the bookshop’s number on the phone directory, then he calls it hoping Brienne picks it up.

“ _Harlaw Books_ , how can I help you?” She asks a moment later, and he’s so relieved he could cry.

“Hey,” he says, “uh, if we’re still up for tonight —”

“Sure we are,” Brienne says. “Did anything happen?”

“My sister dropped by,” he sighs, “and I’m sure she’ll lurk outside waiting for you to show up. Do you mind taking the way from behind the house and coming in from the window on the back? I know it’s ridiculous, but —”

“That’s fine,” she answers at once, _thankfully_ , “no problem whatsoever. See you in thirty then.” She sounds like she’s smiling. Christ, he knows he’s smiling back, but it dies the moment she puts down the phone, because now he’s thinking of what Cersei said before and he knows he shouldn’t mind it, he knows he _shouldn’t_ , but suddenly he realizes that these last few months it was mostly _Brienne_ doing all the work in bed and shit, _shit_ , what if she really might be getting tired of it but she’s too — too nice to tell him otherwise? He knows it’s ridiculous and that back when she _paid_ to have sex with him she wasn’t asking to _receive_ either, and it’s just Cersei’s way of getting under his skin, but he’s known for years that he doesn’t have much to offer beyond _that_ and what if she’s right, what if —

He takes off the coat, takes the flowers and goes upstairs, suddenly feeling like he can’t stand the living room anymore. He closes the door of his own, momentarily breathing in relief the moment he’s surrounded by his familiar walls and _his_ familiar things — he kicks off his shoes, lies on the bed, feeling that soft, warm blanket under his back

( ~~ _and he still couldn’t give her a better present than himself_~~ )

and tries to get a hold of himself. Shit, it’s been years and he hates how she can get to him just by talking to him for ten seconds, damn it, _damn it_ —

He shakes his head, grabs _Cannery Row_ and tries to see if he can soldier through the last three chapters. Maybe he’ll distract himself enough —

He’s done with the thirty-first

( _shit, it took him what, half an hour for five pages, maybe, he really was an idiot if he thought he could actually graduate without his father paying it for him_ )

when he hears knocking on his window. What —

He puts the book away and _shit_ , there she is, and wait, did she _climb her way to it_ —

He stands up and immediately opens it.

“The hell — did you —”

“‘Scuse me,” she grins, hosting herself up inside, “if I couldn’t even climb over here I wouldn’t have managed to _almost_ land those scholarships now, would I?”

“You could have knocked —”

“But this was more fun,” she says, and she looks happy to be here, and he thinks she’d be a terrible liar but that conversation is weighing on his stomach like rotten food —

Then she sees the flowers on the bed, her eyes going wide. Ah, _damn_ —

He moves back, grabs them and hands them over. “Uh, I figured — it would be appropriate?”

She reaches out for the bouquet, her hands taking it carefully, and she looks _moved_ now, what —

“No roses, huh?” She says, her fingers running over the blue petals of one forget-me-not.

“Hey, I was listening when you said why you hated them,” he tries to joke, and then she looks at him again like she’s _delighted_ —

“Thanks,” she says, almost awkward, holding the stems tightly in her hand, “uh, no one’s ever done it for real before.”

“And is that a good feeling?”

“It is,” she agrees, placing them carefully on the nearest flat surface. Then she dumps her bag on the ground after rummaging through it. “And I suppose it’s my turn now.”

He almost laughs when she hands him a box of _good_ chocolates, and maybe when they eat a couple while lying down on the bed that feeling he had in his stomach disappears for a bit, but it’s still _there_ and he doesn’t want her to know —

“Hey,” she asks, “everything all right?”

Shit. _Shit_ , it’s Valentine’s Day, she shouldn’t be worrying, and then he thinks about what Cersei said before, _again_ —

“Yeah,” he says, “I just, I missed you,” he goes on, moving in between her legs, his hands going to her shirt, and maybe if he reminds her — if he does — maybe she won’t think —

He lets his fingers touch the top button of her flannel shirt. “Can I —”

“Sure,” she says, lying back against the pillows, _good_.

And so he opens the shirt carefully, leaning down, kissing his way down her neck, waiting a moment to feel her pulse under his lips before he moves farther downwards and uncovers her chest — all muscle, but damn if he doesn’t love how it feels against his hands, and he tries to not make his hands shake as he pushes her jeans downwards and her underwear with them as well, and she’s arching up against his hands and it’s obvious that she’s making an effort of staying still but she’s not moving and she’s moaning in pleasure as he touches her in all the right places that he _knows_ she’s sensitive in, good, _good_ , and then when she gets out of her jeans and underwear and her legs are spread he takes a deep breath and leans down and puts his tongue on her, and she immediately gasps and reaches for his hair, _good_ , good, she’s obviously liking it, and then he starts eating her out for _real_ , his tongue plunging inside her before he moves back to suck on her clit, and he can hear her moan his name —

Great, perfect, that was exactly how it was supposed to go, and so he buries his face inside her cunt deeper, feeling warmth and softness around his mouth as he swallows her sweet, sweet taste, and maybe he’s going fast now, _faster_ , but fuck he needs her to come against his face and he needs to drink all of it and he needs to _know_ that she knows he’s still good at _this_ at least, even if he likes it better if _she_ decides when he should do it, even if he likes it better when she’s on top, but he doesn’t want her to assume anything, he just wants her — he wants her —

“Hey, wait —”

She says it suddenly, her hand going to his shoulder, shaking it, and wait, what, fuck, he did something wrong? _What_ _could he have done wrong_ , she was liking it, if there’s one thing he’s damn sure he knows how to do is eating a girl out, and he’s sure his hands are trembling —

She covers them with his a moment later as he goes on his knees and looks at her. She looks worried.

“Something’s wrong,” she says, but she doesn’t sound angry.

“It’s not,” he immediately tells her. “Really, it’s —”

She shakes her head. “You know,” she says, “ _that_ felt great, but — it felt like the first time. I mean, the _very_ first. And since — since I wasn’t paying anymore, it felt different.”

_What_ —

She still doesn’t look angry. “I don’t need _that_ , you know.”

“What — what do you mean?”

“I don’t know what’s wrong,” she shakes her head, “but I don’t need you to — you know. Do _that_. I don’t know what you’re trying to prove to me, but you don’t have to. Really.”

Oh.

_Oh_.

Fuck, did she really notice from —

“I told you my sister showed up,” he admits, not quite looking up at her. “Uh, she said — things. That I shouldn’t mind, but — amongst them — she not so kindly reminded me of what are my best skills in life and I realized that since we, well, started doing _this_ , it was mostly you taking charge and I didn’t want to — I don’t know. I didn’t want you to think I wouldn’t —”

He stops the moment her palm grasps the back of his neck. When he looks up at her, her eyes look like she wants to punch a wall, but not _him_.

“Your sister,” she says, “should really hope we never run into each other again.”

“What —”

“Never mind that,” she shakes her head. “I can’t presume to convince you of anything when we’ve known each other for a few months, but can you listen to me one moment?”

“As long as you want,” he blurts, trying to sound like he cares less than he actually does.

“I’m not _expecting_ you to do anything here. You don’t have to remind me you’re good at that — I _know_ that. I mean, you were my first, I suppose I _would_. But if it was just about —” She moves a hand in between the two of them. “— I wouldn’t care as much. I wouldn’t have come back. I don’t know what the fuck your sister thinks or assumes, but I’m doing this because I like _you_ , not your skills in bed. And you don’t have to remind me of _that_. I know. I don’t want you to feel like you _have to_ do anything.”

He knows he’s _staring_ at her now as she moves closer and her hand goes to his face, and shit he wishes he could do anything other than just trying to make sense of what she’s just said because it sounds too good to be real and he knows she’s not lying but somehow he just can’t — he can’t —

“How,” he blurts, “I mean, I know I shouldn’t ask, but I just — I don’t even know what you see in me half of the time, for that matter, and I wish I did —”

She moves closer, shaking her head, flipping them over, obviously not minding that she’s only wearing her shirt. “Let’s see,” she says, “not even touching the fact that you _did_ remember I hated roses and that you listen to me when I talk, which should be a given but I can assure you that it’s _not_ … do you think many people look at me and give a _damn_? Or that many people look at me and don’t assume I’m some kind of joke? I’ve felt _wrong_ my entire damned life — I never was enough of a damned woman for anyone but if I tried to do what _men_ did people would laugh and even if I succeeded they wouldn’t take me seriously, and if I tried to — wear dresses or make-up or what have you it would be _worse_ , never mind that I felt like shit the moment I realize that if it came to sex I didn’t really want to _take_ it, and not counting my father who is _not_ a good example of this, _you_ have been the only person I’ve known that never made me feel like I was born wrong. I feel _right_ when I’m with you. Whatever it is that we do. You want to know what I see?” She stops for a moment, then breathes in — “I see the _one_ damned person who ever gave a damn about me and not because they _needed_ something, I see someone who deserves way more than the crap he usually deals with, is the kind of person who won’t judge you based on how you _look_ and — the more time I spend with you the more this entire thing feels _right_ , that’s how it is, and we could stop fucking now for the rest of our lives and it wouldn’t change what I think of you. And you don’t have to prove shit to me regardless.”

He — he honestly has no idea of how he should take it.

It’s —

He _knew_ she _did_ see something in him, she had to, but he had no idea _that_ was it, and he wishes he had _any_ words to answer right now but he can just hold her stare as he realizes that she’s not fucking lying, she couldn’t, not with the way those blue eyes of hers are looking at him, and —

“You know,” she says, her lips curled in a small smile regardless of how he’s failing at providing _any answer_ , “I could ask you what you see in _me_ half of the time.”

At _that_ , he suddenly feels a burning need to deny it to hell and back, because of course he would, how could she even think _that —_

“The hell,” he says, “don’t even joke about it. I —”

“Come on,” she says, “I’m hardly _attractive_ even if I might be to _you_ , no one takes me seriously because of that, I have zero prospects beyond the damned bookshop because no one will look beyond _that_ , I have _one_ friend who’s off to college and only comes back on holidays, every damned time I try to change things for the better it goes to shit and most people who run into me don’t even think twice before deciding I’m not worth their time. I really am _not_ much of a prospect.”

“Don’t,” he protests, “shit, _don’t_ , it’s — it’s not your problem if you’re surrounded by complete idiots who don’t see that you’re smarter than most of them and _better_ than most of them and that if only they’d give you a chance you’d knock them into the dust, metaphorically or not. It’s their loss and my gain, I guess, even if I don’t know what the fuck I did to deserve it, but you — you do know you feel _right_ to me, too, and no one else ever did?” He blurts that last sentence forcing himself to hold her stare because he _wants_ to look at her even if his heart is beating so fast he thinks he might faint. “And I’d be very disappointed if we stopped fucking. You might have ruined any other sex for me, you know.”

She shakes her head, moving closer, an arm going around his back, and he goes with it, feeling his eyes _burn_ —

“That was flattering,” she says, kissing the side of his cheek. “So, let’s be real. What it is that you _want_? Because I’m fairly sure _that_ was not it.”

He shrugs. “I mean, not that I don’t like _that_ ,” he says, “but I just — it’s better if I’m not feeling like I have to —”

“What, show off?”

He nods, grateful that she knows how to put it better than he does.

“I don’t need you to,” she says again. “I really don’t.”

“I think I know now,” he whispers in the darkness, that weight on his stomach almost lifted —

“Good. So what do you _want_?” She asks again, and she sounds so eager and so willing and so _ready_ to give it to him if only he just asks —

Could he —

_Could_ he —

He moves his head. He tells her. He thinks his voice is trembling as he does. Which is ridiculous, given what she has accepted to do before —

“All right,” she says at once, “all right. Sure. Now?”

“Please,” he says, feeling that weight lift from his shoulders.

She nods and he lies down against the mattress and he thinks, _I don’t deserve this, but maybe it doesn’t matter_.

— —

Thing is —

He thinks he had somehow known since the moment she walked into his house that she was _right_ , but he doesn’t — Cersei was bad enough until it lasted. He didn’t kiss people for a reason. He’s never let transpire what _he_ wanted out of sex with anyone except maybe _something_ to a handful of people through the years. He had thought no one else _could_ give it to him anyway, because in order to do such a thing you had to be with someone who _was_ right and that you were sure of, and hadn’t he thought Cersei could be, except that sex with Cersei never was what he _wanted_ out of it, and he’s been away from her long enough to know.

Sex with Cersei was about what _she_ wanted, and he thought that giving it to her was what he wanted, too, because after all he had to want the same things she did, that was the crux of it, they wanted the same things because they were supposed to be the same person —

But then he found out it wasn’t the case, not at all, and he had given up on it because he didn’t think he’d ever find someone he’d trust enough to _tell_ —

_Stop overthinking this_ , Brienne says from above him, her hair falling across her face, slightly ruffled, and yes it’s longer now than it was when she knocked on his door the first time, and for a moment he wants to reach out and smooth it behind her ear but no, that’s not what he asked for, maybe he can do it later —

_Yes_ , he agrees, breathing in relief as she grabs his wrists and pins them gently against the mattress —

_Don’t move them_ , she says, kissing one and then the other before moving back and undressing him slowly, taking off one piece of clothing at once until he’s also only in his shirt and just because he should move to take it off, but that won’t matter, he thinks, and then he throws his head back when she starts kissing her way down his chest, starting from the corner of his mouth and then going downwards, and she goes so slow it’s almost excruciating, but it’s good because he has time to get adjusted to the feeling of her mouth, and they’ve been doing this long enough that when she takes hold of his cock she starts jerking him off enough to give him relief but not so fast that he’d come _shortly_ — he doesn’t move his arms, or at least he tries not to, and by the time she’s kissed her way back up to his mouth and her hands are on his wrists again he breathes in relief inside her mouth as she kisses him, her tongue running across his lips before plunging in —

_Good_ , she says, _that’s good_ , and squeezes his wrists and her knees are around his thighs and she’s all over him completely and he’s felt trapped when others did it for years but not _now_ , now it feels _ideal_ , and fuck but for once he just — he wants someone else to take charge and to stop thinking about how much he hates his life and his choices and he doesn’t even want to say _how_ , she knows him, she’ll figure it out —

She grabs the scarf she had thrown on the chair next to the bed, uses it to tie both his wrists to the headboard quickly and swiftly and he could get out of it if he wanted, he _could_ but he won’t because that’s not what he was aiming for, and he relaxes into the sensation of having both of her hands pushing his hips _down_ and his hands unable to move, and then she moves her fingers back to his face, kisses him again as his dick finds some friction against her leg —

Her hands go back down, reach his shoulders, knead at them where they were still a bit tense and he doesn’t even try to keep quiet — he moans her name over and over, feeling like he won’t be able to say much more soon, but he doesn’t think she minds, not when she’s whispering in his ear that he’s doing great and that she just wants him to hold on for a little bit longer and of course he will, he _will_ , it’s not such a hardship, not when she asks so firmly but so nicely —

He barely feels it when she puts the condom on him a moment later but he _does_ feel it a lot when she sinks down on him, fast and hard _at first_ , but then she rides him slowly, _very_ slowly, and he moans her name once, twice, and then she has her hands on the sides of his neck and oh _yes, yes_ , that was — before she never did it while they were _fucking_ properly now, weren’t they —

He nods once, feeling like he couldn’t talk if he tried, and then she has her fingers around his neck and she’s still so impossibly gentle as she presses to the sides and she thrusts her hips down and then up when she releases her grip enough that he can breathe in —

_That’s it_ , he thinks, that’s it, he hadn’t even thought of asking her to do more than she had the first two times because it was already a miracle she hadn’t said no but now that she’s riding him _while_ keeping her fingers on his neck it’s a whole other matter, and he doesn’t feel trapped but he feels like he could just stop caring and she’d see him through it and maybe that’s exactly what he wanted in the first place and she’s clenching around him as she lowers herself down again and _again_ and he’s not thinking about the mess from before anymore, now it’s just spasm of pleasure running under his skin and Brienne’s hands on him keeping him still but nicely, as if she’s not taking it for granted, she’s not taking _him_ for granted and maybe that’s what gets to him more, that she’s _not_

( ~~ _when most people he knows have always taken him for granted haven’t they_~~ )

and he doesn’t think he can hold on that much longer, but, then she leans down and her voice hitches as she says: _go ahead and give it to me_ and so he lets go and he does as she clenches down on him all over again, and her hands run through his hair as she keeps on riding him as he spasm against her over and over and it feels so much more intense than it usually does, even with _her_ , and she’s whispering in his ear that _yes_ that’s what she wanted and he shouldn’t stop and she wants it all and she wants _him_ and she wants all he can give her and so he should do it and of course he wants her to have it, too —

He opens his eyes and everything feels blurry except for her face and her eyes that somehow seem even bluer in the room’s dim light, and she’s breathing heavily and he knows for sure she hasn’t come yet, he’d _know_ , that one thing for sure, and he wants to tell her but words won’t come to him so he nods towards her waist once, twice —

_It’s all right,_ she says, _that was for you, I don’t mind_ , but then he shakes his head; he won’t have her leaving the bed wanting for it, he _won’t_ , and she has to understand that he _means_ it because then she gives him a tiny nod and unties the knot with shaking hands, throwing away the scarf and grasping at his wrists again, and he doesn’t move because she should be the one telling him how does she want it to happen, and she seems to think about it, and his eyes end up staring at her chest where her breasts are small but definitely stiff under that shirt, and then she seems to think about it and nods —

She takes his right wrist, brings his hand in between her legs and he gasps for a moment at how wet she is down there, and if he ever had doubts that she might not like _this_ then he really should stop having them because it’s pretty damn obvious that she does, and then she moves so that she’s closer and she’s bringing his head to her chest and oh, yes, now he thinks he knows what she wants and that’s fun to think about it, because it’s what _he_ wanted too

( _Cersei always used to say that what she wanted was what he wanted and vice versa but he’s known it wasn’t for years and now it’s almost hilarious to think that instead_ _what he wants is what Brienne wants, isn’t it_ )

and he doesn’t waste time before he moves his mouth to her left breast, his free hand going to the right one while his fingers are buried inside her and trying to bring her off, and she says he should take his time and there’s no rush and that’s good because he doesn’t want to make things too fast —

He _does_ take his time, relishing every single moment of feeling how stiff she is under his mouth and his other hand, and he knows he’s not really coordinating his motions now as the fingers on his right hand slip inside her where she’s warm and wet and _this_ close to go over the edge, but it doesn’t matter, he thinks, not now, and so he just keeps on moving his fingers in deeper, making sure he touches her where it makes her clench around him further, relishing the feeling of her arm around him and her hand holding his head right where he needs it to be and for a blessed, blessed moment he feels like if she’s in his bed and they’re undercover then nothing could get to them and he knows it’s another delusion but it doesn’t matter now, what matters is that he needs her to come and he needs to _feel_ it and so he twists his fingers inside her the way he knows will work and a moment later she’s screamed his name and she’s clenching around his fingers again and fuck but he wants to taste it —

He doesn’t know how she understands it, but a moment later she gently pushes him backwards on the mattress and moves back so her cunt is lined up with his face again and _yes_ , good, that was exactly _it_ , and maybe the peak is passing now because she’s trembling but not as much, but she’s still wet enough that he can bury his mouth inside her legs and lick her clean and so he does, taking his time as she grabs the headboard, his hands finding her hips, and by the time he’s done he feels breathless and dizzy but in the good sense, and he lets himself fall back against the pillow, breathing in and out as Brienne lays down next to him, and he wishes he could say something but words aren’t coming now and everything that’s not _her_ is blurred out and he thinks he’s so exhausted he can barely move —

She reaches out, brings him closer, drags up the covers, says nothing as she holds him to her front and as her lips drop a few kisses on his forehead, and he’s beyond coherent thoughts right now except that he doesn’t want to move, not now and not for a long time, but —

She feels right.

So, so _right_.

He thinks she whispers, _you do too_ , before he passes out. Maybe he spoke out loud. Maybe he didn’t. It doesn’t matter. It was the truth.

— —

“How are you feeling?”

It’s the middle of the night. He doesn’t even know how long he’s been asleep, but when he woke up she had been up and looking at him, her hand running through his hair, and he had grasped at her waist tighter.

“Great,” he answered truthfully — he _does_. His entire body feels warm and relaxed and if only she could be the only person he slept with from now on, now _that_ would be ideal, but he doesn’t want to think about the harsh reality of the fact that he has no other option, quite literally, and so he doesn’t.

“So,” she goes on, “not that I want to push on this subject so I won’t, but — can you _please_ try to not assume… any of what you were assuming last evening?”

“I can’t give you guarantees on whether I’ll succeed,” he concedes, “but I’ll try. I swear, it’s just… it’s been a hell of a long time.”

“I get it,” she says, sounding like she _does_ understand, “Just — I need you to know that I’m not settling. Or anything of the kind.”

“I know,” he says. “I _do_. I just, don’t know if I believe it.”

“Well, I think I have plenty of time to convince you of the contrary, don’t I?”

“Please,” he grins against her mouth, trying to hide how hearing that she thinks they have _plenty of time_ is making his heartbeat speed up and making him almost dizzy, “I’m willing to be convinced anytime.”

She leans down, kisses him again, slow, like it _matters_ , like she wants to —

Is it too bad if he hopes that maybe it’s not delusional to expect them to last?

***

He hasn’t worn a suit since he dropped out.

Except that it’s been another month and Brienne’s father _really_ wanted to meet him and so they arranged it and so he took a bus to the nearest town where he wouldn’t be recognized and he bought a cheap suit there, all his old ones were left at the manor and they were all in Lannister colors and he doesn’t —

He doesn’t want _that_.

This one is… fine, he supposes. Charcoal, not black like the ones his father used to stuff him in for any funeral they had to attend

_(like his mother’s)_

and that he always hated, he discarded the tie because ties always made him feel like he couldn’t breathe, but he put one of his nice green shirts underneath and he made sure he gave his beard a trim and that his hair looked nice, and he’s trying to make sure his palms don’t sweat because that’s the least thing he needs, and —

Fuck. He doesn’t know how to do this. He’s never _met anyone’s parents_ because there was no one else whose parents he could meet. Then again, if her father not only doesn’t disapprove of _this_ on principle and hasn’t told her to stop seeing him at once maybe there’s some chance in hell he won’t fuck it up, unless her father hates him the moment they talk to each other, which _could_ absolutely happen, shit, _shit_ , he’s not going to presume _that_ or this meeting will go badly either way. Brienne’s supposed to pick him up in five minutes and then they should drive to the next town over where they’re supposed to meet at some restaurant her father knows while he drives back home from Ohio — doable. He looks at himself one last time — well, if anything he’s presentable —, then locks the door behind him and goes downstairs. He doesn’t think of the five appointments he has tomorrow.

Not today. He stands near the window and the moment he sees Brienne’s car approaching in the darkness he puts on his coat, bolts the door and dashes into the passenger seat.

She speeds out of town, then slows down to look at him, and — shit. She looks legitimate excited…? And then her cheeks go slightly redder.

“What,” he smiles, “liking what you see?”

“Oh, because you don’t know that,” she huffs, moving her eyes back to the road. “Excuse me if you clean up even better than usual.”

“If you wanted me to wear suits more often —”

“You have one under that coat? Jesus, remind me to sit opposite you or this is going to be embarrassing as hell.”

“ _You_ say that?” He knows that some worry can be heard in his voice, he _knows_ , but then she shakes her head, her fingers tightening on the wheel.

“Hey,” she says, “it’s going to be _fine_. He doesn’t hate you on principle — actually, not at all —, he’s been asking since January and he’s not going to eat you alive.”

He shrugs. “I know,” he says, “it’s just — it’s not like I ever did it _before_ with anyone else. And I don’t think I’ll ever bring you to meet _my_ father.”

“Please don’t,” she says, “I’d end up punching him in the face the moment you introduced us.”

Somehow, it’s… comforting to hear that. Not that he’d ever thought anyone would want to punch his father in the face for _him_ , but — it _is_. He breathes in, out, turns on the radio as Brienne speeds a bit, and thankfully she doesn’t press the issue until they’ve parked the car in front of the restaurant. It’s another Italian, but it looks nicer than the one back home, even if it’s nowhere near as fancy as the places he used to go with his relatives a lifetime ago.

Brienne parks the car and he follows her out of it — she locks the door, then turns towards the entrance and —

“Oh, here he is,” she says, dashing to the other side, and Jaime turns in time to see her hugging a man slightly taller than she is, who once was probably bulkier than her but who of course isn’t now, who is also wearing a nice blue coat.

He doesn’t remember his father ever hugging either him or Cersei or Tyrion like that. He thinks his mother used to do that, once upon a time. He barely remembers it.

Whatever. That’s not — if he starts thinking about _that_ , he’s going to fuck things up for himself on his own, so maybe he needs to not think about it and suck it up. He breathes in and out and crosses the road just as Brienne moves back from her father.

He clears his throat, holding a hand out. He’s just glad it’s not shaking for some reason.

“Mr. Tarth,” he starts, hoping he remembers how to be damn formal.

The man turns to him and immediately shakes his hand with vigor. “Please,” he says, “it’s Selwyn. I might be old, I don’t need a reminder.”

Now that they’re close, Jaime can see the resemblance — they’re both tall, of course, and with large shoulders. She has the same eyes, just maybe a darker shade of blue, and of course he has silver hair now, perfectly combed, with a short, well-kept beard, also silver. There are a few blonde strands, but not that many.

“Very — very well then. Uh —”

“Son, no need for introductions, I _know_ your name,” the man winks at him before letting his hand go. “Shall we?”

“Uh, sure. After you.”

He holds the door open for the both of them, hoping he doesn’t look ridiculous. They both go in and he follows, taking off his coat when the waiter asks for it, then follows them to the reserved table. He also notices that Brienne’s cheeks go redder the moment she notices the suit on him, and for a moment he dares smirk back at her, knowing that maybe it’s having a _good_ effect, but then he immediately sits down and forgets it. He has to make a decent impression here, as much as he can manage.

_If_ he can manage.

— —

Thankfully Brienne is way better at small talk with _her father_ than she is normally, or so it seems, because for the next half hour she manages to hold up the entire conversation so that it’s not embarrassing — thankfully the subject of _how_ they met isn’t touched, but every topic they touch is about what he likes or he doesn’t like or how long they’ve been together or whether they’re doing fine or not and how much they liked the restaurant in Atlantic City that _he_ recommended, and Jaime doesn’t feel like he’s suffocating in the suit while eating his pasta, not until Brienne says she needs to use the bathroom and leaves the two of them on their own.

Suddenly, his shirt feels constricting and not at all comfortable, and the hand he has under the table starts shaking —

“You know,” Selwyn Tarth says, interrupting Jaime’s moment of wishing he could be swallowed by the ground, “you don’t need to presume I’ll kill you on the spot and hide your corpse now that she’s gone.”

“… What?” Jaime tries to bluff. “Uh, beg your pardon, I —”

“Come on,” he goes on, “it’s kind of obvious. That you’re worrying I’m going to do that.”

“… So I suppose you will not?” He asks, daring to look at the man in the eyes. He looks amused, but not… angry or disappointed or anything.

“Can I call you Jaime?”

“Uh, of course, that goes unsaid —”

“Well, Jaime, I’m _not_ , for a whole lot of reasons that might be too long to list when she might be back soon, but let me just tell you a few things. After the amount of arseholes my daughter managed to run into for the entirety of her life, I was about despairing that she’d ever — I don’t know what, find someone who’d make her happy. Or _not miserable_. Except that since she’s with you she’s been — not just _not miserable_. I don’t think I’ve ever seen her smile unprompted since she was _nine,_ now she does it all the time and if I ask her why most of the time she’ll answer that she was thinking about _you_. And she’s stopped wearing _my_ army clothing that doesn’t fit her anyway most of the time. And she doesn’t seem to hate her damned life half as much as she did before, and considering that I’m not around as much as I wish with my job and all, I would be a right idiot if I was out to eat you alive when whatever it is that you do in life you _make her happy_ when no one else has until now.”

Jaime doesn’t know how he doesn’t drop his wine glass to the table.

_Really_ —

It’s not that he didn’t know _that_. He’s not _so_ fucked up that he doesn’t see that she _is_ happy with him the way he is with her, but to hear her _father_ say it so blatantly —

“So — I mean, you don’t mind that — shit, uh, listen, I know I’m not exactly the greatest prospect in existence, but —”

“I don’t mind _what_ , your job?”

“… That. Also — I guess I’m older than her and I’m really not offering much of a perspective right now —”

“Oh, because all things considered I wouldn’t approve of anyone she dates unless they offer _perspectives_? Come on, I want her to be happy, not to settle. Also, my — her mother, she was some six years younger than me and _that_ wasn’t a problem, and — I know Brienne and I know she’d know what she’s doing. And since I imagine _you_ don’t want to get syphilis yourself then she won’t catch it from you either.”

“What? No,” he blurts, “definitely not, but —”

“Then who cares. Again, I was despairing of ever seeing her happy as long as I lived. Won’t be me complaining about who made it happen. Also — you know I was there when you informed half of that diner that didn’t belong to your brother _then_ of your life perspectives?”

“… F — I mean, I didn’t know,” he snorts, “this is embarrassing —”

“Please,” her father goes on, “the only thing I thought was that whatever was your problem, if I had been _your_ father I wouldn’t have been somewhere else not giving two fucks and considering what everyone knows about him — never mind. Really, just stop worrying. Also, if I had any reservations, they’d have disappeared the moment I saw the two of you.”

“… Really?”

“Yes, because you were looking at her like you’d _die_ if this dinner went wrong, and I think that’s about everything I need to know. Also, for final disclosure, she did tell me you two went to watch movies a while ago.”

“… Did she share any details?” He asks, not hiding how relieved he sounds.

“No, but she told me which one you did actually end up seeing, and I suppose this is when I tell you that _Stagecoach_ is my favorite movie and my favorite character wasn’t certainly the damned _banker_. Oh, there she is.”

Brienne is coming back to their table and Jaime just — breathes out again, figuring that there is no way to misinterpret what the man has just implied, and fuck but his chest feels lighter and when Brienne starts talking again he actually joins the conversation and not just to agree or disagree, and when it turns out that they _do_ root for the same baseball team (a sport Brienne apparently doesn’t care for either way) he ends up discussing games he had thought he had forgotten watching years ago and it feels _good_ and by the time they had dessert and paid the bill he’s also had a couple glasses of wine and he hasn’t apparently said or done anything actually embarrassing, and when Brienne’s father drives away after shaking his hand again, he feels like he could faint in relief.

“So,” she smiles, “told you he wouldn’t be so bad.”

“Fair,” he says, figuring there’s no point in hiding that he _does_ feel relieved, “and I suppose you did like my suit?”

Suddenly, her cheeks turn redder. Again.

“What if I did?”

He smirks back, deciding to take advantage of the moment. “I never said you couldn’t take it off me at the first available place we find,” he says, and winks at her —

They stop at the first motel they find.

There, she strips him off that suit very slowly and very carefully, and he immediately swears to himself that he’s going to wear the damned thing a lot more often in the future.

Shit, it’s so _good_ to think _in the future,_ and to actually realize that he’s not currently entertaining a damned delusion.

For now, at least.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAND see you all next round with THE RETURN OF THE PLOT HAMMER if it doesn't run away from me *again*.


	6. you want it, you take it, you pay the price

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which everything seems to go well and Jaime gives Brienne a crash course in fashion. And then things go down south.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... hahaha have fun with The Plot About To Hit You In The Face. Don't worry things don't go down south for *them* and I'll leave you without cliffhangers for the next couple days it'll take me to do chapter seven but yeah. The second half of this part Is Not Fun please heed the new tags and thread carefully. I SWEAR NEXT TIME THE PLOT HAMMER WILL BE KINDER.
> 
> also, I'm about to go on limited internet so I'll answer comments slower than usual but I'll be around and I swear I'll try to have this wrapped within the next week. And I'll saunter back downwards now. /o\

Winter _finally_ thaws away by the time March is over, and he can see his father’s new factory come to life looking from his window, not far from the edge of town at all — so it won’t be the _edge of town_ for much longer, he supposes. Not that he cares — he supposes it will just mean more business, if his father doesn’t hire some paid assassin to make sure he doesn’t embarrass the family name even further or _whatever_. He foresees waking up to see lines of people heading for that damn factory with death in their eyes every other morning, same as anyone else he’s ever seen working for his father, he thinks of Sandor Clegane telling him he didn’t look _dead_ anymore when he opened the door, and — he doesn’t know what does it say about him and about the fact that he once thought fucking people for money would meant _not_ doing his father’s bidding.

What he knows it’s that it’s warm enough to finally ditch his old winter coat, and fuck doesn’t he _hate_ the cold, and what he knows is that it’s warm enough that Brienne has shed _hers_ and he really does appreciate that her lighter jackets show off her arms more than the coat ever did. What he knows is that she still hasn’t put two and two together and realized that she could do better than him and so she hasn’t, and what he knows is that he can’t believe it’s been four months and nothing went wrong (yet) and she isn’t tired of him (yet) and her father honest to fucking God seems to like him for real (for now), and while he hasn’t gone as far as considering where they’ll be in a year… she isn’t even asking for it, and he’s so grateful for it he could weep.

Instead he drops by the bookshop once every couple of days, to the point that her boss sends him _knowing_ looks and Jaime is just happy that apparently Rodrik Harlaw can’t give two fucks about his job choices, and maybe he buys something every other time or Brienne gifts it to him before slipping the money inside the register, he saw her doing that, and while he hasn’t read half of those books yet… now there’s a shelf in his room that only holds a few handfuls of short paperbacks, and the half he’s read maybe has notes and so on, and maybe it’s taking him a while but he’s trying to actually finish all of them, and every single book she’s given him has been one he has liked.

( _He can barely believe that he discusses books with Tyrion now and it’s not just Tyrion ranting at him and Jaime nodding in what feels like the right places. He — likes it, he thinks. He likes that they can share that now, and he likes that for once in his life he’s not feeling like he’ll never get the hang of it because if anything she_ did _stick into his head that there’s no right or wrong way of reading damned novels._ )

Instead, they manage to go out of town at least a couple times each month, and doesn’t he relish being _away_ from it just as she does, he can see it.

Instead, sometimes _she_ shows up with flowers and he’s never told her that it always makes _something_ in his stomach stir warmly whenever she does.

Instead, she did have to go to the damned high school reunion at some point and while she _would_ have brought him with, he had known just by looking at her, he said no just to spare her from the consequences _but_ he had volunteered to teach her how to put on make-up because of course he _can_ do that, and he sent her off with a killer pair-up of eyeshadow and eyeliner of four types of blue, and when she came back she was laughing and saying that people kept on glaring at her with open mouths and wondering where she learned, and then she had kissed him into the sofa and it hadn’t been such a bad evening when it came to his clients, and he had loved every single moment of it.

Now they’re both lying down on his bed, and he’s going to have to change the sheets in the morning but he can’t care less, and her fingers are drawing patterns on his chest and everything would feel perfect if she wasn’t slightly tense and he couldn’t _feel_ it.

“Spill,” he says.

“… What should I spill about?”

“You’re worried about something. I can _feel_ it. I know it’s not me or it would be different, but you _are_. Come on, do you think I’m going to _judge_ you?”

She snorts, shakes her head, goes on her elbow to look straight at him. “No, it’s just — last week, it was the _regular_ high school reunion. _This_ one, there’s — the football team reunion.”

He can immediately imagine _why_ she’s tense.

“And do you have to go?”

“No,” she admits, “but — some of them were… the people from that bet, you know. It’d feel like I’m giving them satisfaction. And I don’t want to.”

He nods, getting the problem. “Do you want more make-up advice? I’m entirely down with it, as long as you show up before the usual parade starts.”

She looks to the side. “Maybe that could help,” she shrugs. “I mean, none of them ever thought I could… look good if I put on make-up and so on. But — this is going to sound ridiculous.”

“Try me,” he presses. “Come on, I think we’re beyond that by now.”

“I know.” She sounds fond, she _does_ , and her hand reaches for his and his heart skips a beat or two. “I — I haven’t worn a dress in years. I thought maybe — I could. Just to show them I _could_ show up in one if I wanted to. But it’s not like — Sansa would come with me, but she’s off in college now and I’m not going to _Boston_ to buy one just because she’s there.”

“Are you taking the long way around to ask me if _I_ want to come with you to get one?” He grins. “Because I _would_ like that.”

“You — you would? I mean, you don’t _have_ to and men don’t usually relish —”

“Brienne, do you think I _never_ change my wardrobe?” He shakes his head. “Come on, don’t be unfair now. Of course I’d come. I’m pretty sure I could give you pretty good advice. I’m not lending you _mine_ , though.”

“I wouldn’t want that,” she says, seriously, but with a hint of a grin around her lips. “I’d never take that one dress from _you_ , I’d feel like shit if I did.”

“Well,” he grins, “tomorrow I’m free until seven PM and it’s a Thursday. When’s the reunion?”

“Next Monday.”

“I’ll remember that,” he says. He’s sure he has appointments, but not until later than ten PM. He’ll have to check. “So, when are you picking me up?”

“I only work in the morning tomorrow.” A brighter smile is spreading slowly over her lips. “Is two PM good for you?”

“Sure it is,” he says, and kisses her again, relishing how much he loves doing it while she’s smiling, and he starts thinking of _what_ shops in the next town over he could bring her to.

— —

The first two dresses are _not_ a good fit and she looks ready to give up, but he tells her that there’s no way they _won’t_ find one that might look good — he tells her to stay put in the changing room and to wait for him. Then he takes another stroll around the place — it’s one of his favorite shops for _his_ own clothing because it’s large enough that sales assistant won’t bother you but the clothing is actually not shitty and it has a lot of choices in a _lot_ of sizes. He puts back the green one she handed him through the curtain before, glancing around, and then he sees _it_.

It’s a sky-blue simple gown that would match her eyes perfectly, with no waist whatsoever and a few blue flowers embroidered on the shoulders and along the squared neckline. He’s been in his business long enough and he’s spent enough time around his own family and his sister’s choices of dresses to know that it wouldn’t show off her lack of hips _and_ wouldn’t make her shoulders look too large. He checks the size — it sounds like hers. _Good_. He snatches it from the rack, then goes back to her changing room.

“Try this one,” he says, handing it to her. He hears cloth rustling for a bit, then nothing. “Brienne?” He asks after he hasn’t heard her speak for too long.

“You — you can come in,” she says, and so he does, and she’s staring at her reflection in the mirror as if she’s seeing a complete stranger. She might as well — the dress falls on her _perfectly_ , exactly the way he had pictured it, and the neckline actually makes her breasts look larger while the straight lines of it compliment her shape and don’t show off curves that aren’t there, but instead give you the illusion that there _might_ be some underneath. The flowers _really_ are a nice touch, he decided — quite feminine but not _too much_ , and now that her hair is slightly longer, if she styled it a bit better than the messy bun it’s in right now… it _would_ paint a damn nice picture.

“What,” he says, “are you speechless?”

“… Maybe?” She blurts, her voice suddenly more vulnerable than he’d like to hear. “I mean, it’s — I never — this is the first time I put one of these on and it looks… nice. I guess.”

He could remind her that according to _him_ , she’s always looked pretty damn hot. But he doesn’t think she needs _that_.

“I think,” he says, “that instead you should thank _me_ for my great taste, pay for this, find a pair of flats to go with it and come back on Monday afternoon. I _did_ volunteer to fix you that make-up, didn’t I?”

“You might have,” she agrees, her voice wavering. “And — well, yeah, I guess I’ve got to give it to you — you _do_ have great taste.”

“Excellent,” he says. “So, you’re getting it?”

“I think I am,” she says, sounding like she’s not _unsure_ of it.

Good.

Because she _shouldn’t_.

— —

On Monday, she shows up at five thirty, her dinner is at seven in the next town over, so it should be enough time. He waits for her to come out of his bathroom wearing the gown, a new pair of blue flats and a shawl he insisted she’d get at the shop so that she could put it over her shoulders if she felt cold, and then he sits her down on the bed and proceeds on re-doing that killer blue make-up, delighted in realizing that it does match the dress perfectly. She tries to argue that she doesn’t need lipstick but he tells her that she might as well go the whole way and paints her lips in a pale pink that looks way better on _her_ than on him when he has to use it on request of the people belonging to the worst category of male clients in a power trip, and then tells her to not move as he rummages inside his closet, wondering if he still has it —

_Right_.

He did win a fencing tournament once, when he was sixteen, before his father decided that he should worry more about his grades and less about sports. The trophy had come with blue, red and white ribbons around it. Cersei had taken all the red ones, but had left him the other two. He brought the damned thing with because it was a fucking question of principle, and it still has the ribbons around it. He grabs a white one and a blue one, then closes the door and moves behind her on the bed.

“My hair’s fine —” She starts.

“Just you wait,” he interrupts her, grabbing one of his brushes and untangling it — she should take better care of it, he decides, but since she obviously showered before coming her it’s clean and soft and while he can’t _curl_ it, he can definitely treat it better than _she_ does, and so he takes his time to do it and then — it’s not long enough for the French braid he’d have envisioned on her, but it’s enough for a regular one, and so he fixes it for her and ties it with both ribbons. At the end, he thinks she looks pretty damn good, and when he has her look in the mirror she _has_ to agree — tied like that, her hair looks soft and shiny and not as messy as it usually is, and she looks about to cry as she takes in her reflection, even if she _doesn’t_.

“You know,” she tells him, standing up, “you could make a job out of that.”

“I wish,” he laughs, “but I think I’d rather keep my services for you. And that does look great,” he sighs. “Now if only I could take advantage.” He winks at her, and then he realizes she’s _staring_ at him.

“What?”

“Dinner should be done by nine PM,” she says. “I have to be at work early tomorrow because it’s inventory day, but — you know that field some ten minutes from here?”

“The one with the electric power plant that my illustrious father has been coveting to buy for years? Yeah. Wait, do you want to —”

“We could meet there,” she smiles. “Ten PM. What do you say?”

He smiles back, thinking that it _would_ be a good way to end the evening since he has both Selyse Baratheon _and_ Aliser Thorne this evening, fuck the both of them, and not _literally_.

“I’m saying I’m game,” he replies, and doesn’t kiss her just because he’d fuck up her lipstick if he did, and he sees her driving off and starts counting the damned minutes.

— —

At ten, he’s walked all the way to the field, wishing the scalding hot shower he took before had been enough to make him stop feeling Selyse Baratheon’s manicured nails grasping at his back, never mind the sting of fucking Aliser Thorne’s palms hitting his cheeks — at least he’s not hitting the kids he’s supposed to be teaching PE to, Jaime thinks without much consolation.

It’s a large enough field, the power plant being the only building disrupting the expanse of newly grown green grass all over it. It’s wet and soft and cool and it doesn’t burn as much as his face does. He doesn’t have time to think about it much further, though, because Brienne’s car is stopping on the other side of the road and she’s getting out of it, her shoes obviously left on the car since she’s coming at him with bare feet and a small smile on her face.

“Hey,” he tells her as she comes in front of him, the blue of her dress looking luminous in the dim lights surrounding them, “how did it go?”

“They couldn’t believe it was _me_ ,” she laughs, sounding fairly satisfied. Good. She should. “And they kept on asking how did I learn and where did I buy the dress and did someone else do it for me and I just hinted that I might be seeing someone way better than all of them put together, and most of them couldn’t even look my way the entire evening.”

She sounds delighted of it and he has to laugh at it and kiss her because seeing her like _this_ over her damned looks makes him want to tell her that she can drop by every damned time she wants her make-up done if it makes her _this_ happy, but then he doesn’t because her mouth is on his and she’s kissing him like she’s starved for it, and then she glances at the ground, then at him —

Then she takes the shawl off her shoulders and drapes it on the ground.

“ _Here_?” He grins, feeling a thrill at the idea that anyone might pass by and she hasn’t thought about it for more than five seconds. Fine, no one ever passes here at night, but _still —_

“If you want to —” She starts.

“You only have to ask,” he smiles back, lying on the shawl, and if she doesn’t mind that it’s going to get dirty, well, he won’t be the one pointing it out.

He reaches up, undoing her braid and seeing her blonde hair spill on her shoulders — it’s a _bit_ curly now that it’s stayed braided that long, and he runs his fingers through it once before she leans down and kisses him again, raising up the skirt of her gown as she reaches down and opens his belt, putting it to the side.

He’s laughing and she’s laughing as he lifts his hips up and pushes his jeans down and off him after kicking away his shoes, and then she’s taken off her underwear, too, and the skirt of her dress falls all over his chest as she tries to make sure it doesn’t get in the way. The air is chilly, but he doesn’t mind because she has her hands on his face and his neck as they kiss, and as her thigh touches his dick he search friction against it, his hips arching up, and he can feel her hands on his face, her thumbs running over the red signs that are still hot over his skin, and she doesn’t ask who it was but she kisses both his cheeks before moving her hands along his chest and under his shirt.

Her fingers find his nipples, and he moans into her mouth as she twists delicately on both of them — his hands go to her hair, grasping at the small waves at the end of the strands falling across her face, and he can’t believe they’re about to fuck in a damned field like the teenagers neither of them has been (from what he gathered at least), but they _are_ and he’s warm and her thighs are around his hips and he _does_ want to hide his head under her dress and eat her out, but he doesn’t ask, too busy worrying about how her mouth is trailing across his neck, her teeth lightly grasping at the skin just below his beard.

“Fuck,” he gasps as she twists on his nipples again, “ _fuck_ , yes, please —”

“More?” She asks, her voice taking a teasing tone he sure as hell likes a lot, and then she pulls up his shirt and puts her _mouth_ on the left one and _fuck_ , if she wanted to make him forget the previous three hours she’s _really_ succeeding — she runs her tongue on it, then her teeth, delicately, without biting, and he has to bury his hands in her hair and scream her name, and then she moves on to the other nipple while her fingers twist on the one she just left, and by the time she’s done he’s _this_ close and she’s looking down at him and her eyes are so impossibly blue he wants to drown in them, and she looks like she has _thought_ about this and it only makes him feel even harder —

“You’ve thought about this, haven’t you,” he blurts as she drops kisses along his neck.

“Maybe I did,” she moans, and fuck but he’s _beyond_ glad that since they started being _serious_ about this she’s stopped holding back when they fuck. She _always_ did look like she couldn’t wait to let herself loose when they fucked those first few times but now she’s just — he loves how she doesn’t _care_ and how she seems to enjoy every moment of it and maybe he’s selfishly glad she found out with _him_ , but he thinks he can be allowed _that_.

“So what — have you thought about?”

Her cheeks go redder, just slightly —

“Do you think — you could — you _could_ — if I don’t touch you _there_ at all?”

Just _hearing_ that makes his cock even harder, his throat going dry at the thought, and thing is —

“I think I _definitely_ could,” he agrees at once, and then her mouth is on him again and her hands are everywhere _but_ on his dick, and at most he finds friction against her leg once in a while but not really that much, and then she straddles him higher so that there’s no way they might touch, and he moans as she pins her hands to the ground through the shawl and shit, _yes_ , if she keeps on like this it won’t take long, and he tells her that as she moves back and raises her skirt, looking down at his erection, and fuck but he’s so hard it’s painful and he does want to touch himself but he _won’t_ , not even as she releases her wrists and moves to his side and moves her hands to his nipples _again_ , and then she shakes her head and moves _behind_ him, fuck, _fuck_ , her hand going around his waist, and he can feel the flowers of her dress press against his back but he doesn’t _care_ , not when her chest feels warm and solid against his back and her hand is pressed flat on his stomach and she’s _watching_ him below the waist —

“Now,” she breathes in his ear as her arms drag him closer, and — and he thinks that’s it, he can’t hold back and fuck, _fuck_ , he’s coming all over his own stomach and she hasn’t touched him once and it hadn’t happened in ages, he thinks, and then she swears and reaches down and jerks him off through the entire thing and at this point he just lets his head fall in the hollow of her neck, his mouth finding hers when she leans down and they kiss until he’s spent in her hand and he feels like he’s run a damned marathon, and then he _does_ ask her if she doesn’t need any help, and she smiles as she moves from behind him, laying him gently on the shawl again —

Then she raises her skirt and sits on his face _again_ , and she’s so wet he thinks he could finger her with his entire hand and she would barely feel him sliding in, but that’s not what she asked for nor what he’s wanted for this entire time —

And so he buries his face in between her legs again, the soft cloth of the dress falling around his face, swallowing every drop that falls on his tongue, and thinking _anyone could see us_ as it makes his blood flow even hotter.

Yes, he thinks, _yes_ , this was the damn best idea she’s ever had.

Maybe he should tell her to do it more often.

Later, though.

_Later._

***

He should have never presumed that the moment things seemed to look up, somehow, even if not on the front concerning his job, it would last.

But he _does_ , because after all he’s never been the sharpest tool in the box and he dared assuming that maybe he’d be left alone at least until the factory business was finished, and instead he knows something’s wrong when Illyrio Myopatis, as in, his landlord, shows up on the last day of April to collect his rent money.

“I need to talk to you,” he says, after snatching the envelope.

“All right,” Jaime says, not liking the tone whatsoever.

“It won’t be long. But — well. I can’t keep you here at this price for much longer.”

_The fuck_ , Jaime thinks. “This place is about falling apart and it’s in an _abandoned street_ and I pay you three times what it’s worth,” he says. “How exactly did the estate value rise now?”

The asshole nods towards his right.

Oh, _shit_.

“Right. My father’s new factory. Is this because you’re hoping to rent this house to some poor bastard or has my father told you to raise my rent so I’m forced to move?”

The man has the grace to not look at him in the eyes as he answers. “I don’t think you need me to say it,” he blurts.

Well, shit, then it’s his father.

_Fuck_.

He pays three hundred per month, which for _this_ house in _this_ town is entirely overpriced. But he also pays the bills himself, and he has to eat, and he also would like to save something once in a while, so while he could afford it up to four hundred, more than that… would be a problem.

“And how much would you charge me for staying here?”

“Six hundred per month.” He still isn’t looking at Jaime in the face as he says it.

“What the _fuck_ ,” Jaime says, “you know it’s thievery.”

“I know,” he says, “but I have a business and I’d like to not end up bankrupt, and sorry but _you_ aren’t worth it, Lannister. You’ve got a month to decide what to do.” Then he turns his back on him and leaves hastily, and Jaime slams the door closed.

Well, _fuck_. Six hundred per month is twelve basic fucks, which is not _that_ much, but that’s not counting the damned bills and so on, and he doesn’t work with the same rhythms the entire year _all the time_ , and his savings account is… maybe some five thousand dollars, not more, because he might have been doing this fucking job for years but if you go one month with barely any customers (or two, every damned winter) you end up going _there_ , and as much as you can charge extra, there’ll always be _something_ happening preventing you from putting much more than that together.

Shit.

Thing is, he _could_ just leave here and find some other place, but if it’s his _father_ sponsoring this travesty, then it means that he won’t find an apartment in town for less than that, which means he’s thrice-fucked, because while he’s sure that Tyrion would let him sleep on the couch of his apartment on the diner’s first floor, he _wouldn’t_ lend it to him as a fucking office.

And he wouldn’t even ask for it — fuck’s sake, the last thing Tyrion needs is to be dragged into _his_ damned mess.

Well, _shit_ , again. Five thousand is nowhere near enough to get started somewhere else, never mind that he doesn’t even know what else he could _do_ , he didn’t train for different fields of expertise back in the damned day.

_Fuck, fuck,_ and fuck. The only feasible plan for now seems to take as many appointments as possible this month and keep all the money for himself and see if he can make a full two thousand, but it seems fairly improbable, and honestly, once maybe he could have soldiered through it, but now that he has — now that he’s in a damned relationship he doesn’t know if he could do that for the entire month without throwing up in between clients, and he can’t even be angry about that because honestly, he wouldn’t trade that for the world, and so —

He takes a deep breath, then two. He’ll ask other people about renting another apartment. Meanwhile he’ll take his clients as usual and if he can have extra appointments, he will accept them. If in two weeks he sees that it’s a lost cause, well, he’ll think of something. Somehow.

He just hopes he’ll manage to fake it with Brienne because the last thing he needs is that she gets worried about him on top of everything else.

But it shouldn’t be too hard. He’s faked all his life, hasn’t he?

— —

He asks.

Two weeks later, anyone who would have even considered renting him a place, won’t do it for less than seven hundred fucking dollars.

He goes to Tyrion’s just before he closes.

“Can — can I ask you a favor?” He blurts when all the clients have left.

Tyrion glares at him for a moment, but then he shakes his head somehow fondly before he sits down in front of him at his booth. “Wow, for the first time in your life you’re actually _asking for help_? I’m floored. Of course you can _ask me a favor_ , fuck’s sake.”

Jaime would have smiled, if he wasn’t too tired to. “Myopatis is kicking me out.”

“ _What_?”

“Well, not exactly, but long story short, he doubled the rent and he made me understand it was because Father is asking him to. And I had enough proof of it asking around because no one will rent me anything for less than seven hundred.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Tyrion says, “he _really_ means to succeed at driving you out of here this time, huh?”

“Yeah, and where the fuck would I go? Anyway, uh, I don’t know what the hell I’ll do in two weeks, but — could I bring my stuff over to your place while it’s still early and maybe sleep there for a bit? I mean, it’s not even that much but I really don’t think I can take the bait, I don’t have _that_ much money to —”

“Jaime, damn it, you don’t have to _beg_ me for the guest room, of course you can have it. It’s not like I have friends over every night and even if I did, I’d be a damn shitty person if I told you to sleep under a bridge now, wouldn’t I?”

“Please,” Jaime shakes his head, feeling relieved, “you always were the _least_ shitty person in between all three of us, I’d have never presumed it. It’s just, you know you might lose business if —”

Tyrion rolls his mismatched eyes so hard it would almost be comical, _almost_ , if only _this_ wasn’t the topic at hand. “Let’s just pretend you never said _that_. For — do you think I forgot about the cigarettes or the frankly ridiculous amount of times _you_ got shit so I wouldn’t have to take it from either our father or Cersei when the two of them could have left me to die starving in the cradle? I wouldn’t be here being a _not shitty person_ or whatever if it wasn’t for _you_ and you think that now that for when for once you’re asking for help I’ll tell you no because I might _lose business_? When I’ve spent months giving your girlfriend free breakfast just because since you met her you actually don’t look like you hate yourself every other moment? Come on. Don’t be an idiot now, we all know that for all Cersei says you’re _not_ one.”

His hand goes to Jaime’s wrist and Jaime thinks he’s about to cry, and he shouldn’t because he _knows_ but he’s just not — he doesn’t ask for reasons and he wasn’t ready for that speech regardless of how much of it he knew to be true.

He tries not to and just nods and thanks him instead.

Well.

At least he’s _not_ ending up under a bridge or anything of the damned kind.

( _He could have asked Brienne. But he won’t. One thing is what they have now, but asking her for a couch would be exposing the two of them for good and it would mean that everyone would know and her life would turn to be even worse He can’t do that to her. He won’t._ )

— —

“Shit,” he sighs, “you’d think that _one_ room wouldn’t take so much to unpack.”

Brienne, who has been standing on a ladder on the other side of it carefully putting down his posters, stops folding the _Casablanca_ one he had on the top left corner of the wall on the bed’s side and turns to look at where he’s sitting in front of the closet.

“What,” she asks, “too many clothes? Can’t relate.”

“Hilarious,” he quips back, putting away the damned fencing trophy and taking the fourth box out of the back of the closet, _shit_ , how many of them did he have in there? “I thought I had brought _less_ things from — the manor. Whatever.” He pushes box four away before putting the fencing trophy into the empty new one he had on the side. Box one, two and three only had old clothes in them and so he’s going to give them away or whatever, he doesn’t need them. Four, though, he had no fucking clue, nor of why he had pushed it to the very back of the damned piece of furniture. He tears open the tape holding it together, which definitely looks old enough to presume he hasn’t touched the damned thing since he moved here.

“Ah, _fuck_ ,” he sighs as he recognizes the pile of notebooks inside it. Brienne gets down from the ladder and moves next to him, not sitting down yet.

“What, do you need help going through that stuff?”

“No,” he says immediately, “it’s — old notebooks from when I was in school. Some of them are Tyrion’s, probably, I’ll just check which one are his and then I can throw them away. It’s fine.”

Too bad that he can hear it in his own voice — that sounded defensive and she heard it. “Hey,” she says, “there’s nothing in there which could be _so_ shameful that —”

“Please, it’s all embarrassing as hell.”

“Is it,” she asks, and then reaches for the one on top of the pile but he can see that she doesn’t _take_ it. She looks at him, and oh, she’s actually —

She _wouldn’t_ take it, if he said no.

He knows she wouldn’t. It’s _obvious_.

He _could_ say no, he realizes, but — but maybe he doesn’t want to. It comes to him almost as a slap to the face, that she would respect it and most likely wouldn’t press forward, but _he doesn’t want to_ , for some reason, even if it means showing that stuff to someone for the first time in his life, and so he shrugs and tells her to go for it. He doesn’t even know what was in _that_ one, truth to be told —

She opens it.

He immediately recognizes it’s the one he used for English assignments in _third grade_ , fuck, _fuck_ , maybe it’s not too late to take it back, but then she’s obviously reading with interest one of them, he doesn’t know which, and — she smiles in a sort of delighted way that makes him feel extremely wary about what fucking embarrassing thing she might have found in there.

“Brienne, what the _hell_ ,” he says.

“Come on,” she says, turning the notebook and showing him the page in question, and _oh, damn it_ , “this is _cute_.”

“Don’t you dare use that word again,” he tries, but it has no bite in it. It can’t, not when —

“But it _is_ ,” she keeps on, reading the entire thing. Which consists in — shit. The assignment was _if you could be anything when you grow up, what would you like to be_ , and he had written for some four full pages of notebook if not more about how he knew knights were a middle ages thing but he’d have loved to be one because knights were heroes who defended people who needed it and did it honorably and he wished he could be like one of them, and, thing is… it’s _weird_ to see her reading it as it’s the most endearing thing she’s ever seen in her life when he still remembers by heart the evaluation his teacher wrote at the end of it. Well, she’ll find out soon, he supposes.

Indeed, she goes through his mess of an essay with that smile on her lips, but then it falls off as she arrives at the last page.

“What the hell,” she says.

“Told you,” he shrugs, “not that great after all.”

“Oh, come on, it’s not —”

“ _Remarkably childish and entirely too crude, and showing a lack of willingness to work on your studies as the amount of misspells is frankly unacceptable at this grade, F_? Come on, I remember the entire thing, don’t even bother.”

“What kind of school did you even go to?” She asks, and now she sounds outraged.

“One that costs a lot and where everyone else who wrote that essay said they wanted to be a banker, doctor, keeping on the family business, whatever business it was or similar stuff, and my father wasn’t too pleased with those evaluations. And in Cersei’s class all of them wanted to be either married to a rich guy or movie stars or _whatever._ Why?”

“Because she was an idiot,” Brienne says at once.

“It was her job, I think she knew better.”

Brienne stares at him, then stands up and heads for his nightstand, where she takes the red pen he uses on his planner he had left there, then she kneels back next to the box, taking back the notebook. “You mind?” She asks.

“You can keep it for all I care,” he shrugs, moving back to folding clothes. She levels a stare at him, but then she nods and starts writing in the damned thing, quite _some_ for that matter, and then she puts the pen down before going through the rest of the notebook. Her face scrunches in distaste at the third evaluation, and by the time she’s gone through the entire thing and reached his last essay in it, which had been a mere half a page long because he gave up trying, she looks… _sad_?

“Jesus,” she says, “what the hell.”

“Be more specific,” he grins, but he puts an effort in it.

“It’s just — I don’t know, you can see that at some point you just stopped trying because whatever you did wouldn’t work for this piece of shit and actually… there’s nothing _wrong_ with any of these?”

He honestly doesn’t know how to take it, because the two times his father read any of them he tore the pages out of the notebook and trashed them directly, and no one else has seen those notebooks, not even Tyrion because at least _his_ essays got praised to hell and back and he just felt like shit at the idea even if he knew he wouldn’t have judged him or anything, but he didn’t want to put him in the position to lie about it. So he never did.

“I guess everything was, if they had to make sure the parents wouldn’t complain,” he finally says.

She stands up again, then shrugs and hands him the thing. “By the way,” she says, “you never asked me what I wanted to study in college that bad.”

“Does it matter for this exercise?”

“Yes, because I wanted to _teach English_. There’s a reason why I ended up selling books. Anyway, that’s to say I’m not pulling this _completely_ out of my ass.”

He nods, taking it in, wondering why he never asked before — maybe because she seemed reluctant to talk about it. He flips through it, searching for that first evaluation.

She has drawn a few straight lines over the original one, writing _WRONG!_ on the side.

Then she wrote a new one. In all caps. He doesn’t know if he _wants_ to read it, but then he does, figuring he just _should_ —

_This essay shows remarkable skill when it comes to write a long, coherent text from beginning to end, and it’s quite rare at this age. The subject is tackled properly and putting a lot of care and effort in it, and shows that even this young, you know the important things that you want. A - because of the spelling mistakes that can be worked on, but overall it doesn’t deserve to be devalued for such a menial thing._

He has to read it thrice before it sinks in. “You’re _not_ pulling this out of your ass,” he repeats, wondering what she was even thinking.

“No,” she shakes her head. “All I see while reading that is that at eight you were passionate enough about that subject to write four entire pages on the topic even if it might have taken you longer than other people and no one actually asked _why_ you’d make spelling mistakes, and that you wanted to do something — _nice_ for others and that you had enough imagination to go on for years. There’s nothing _wrong_ with that and there’s everything wrong with constantly giving you _F_ s for writing what you wanted and not what she necessarily expected of you. It was a good essay. Really.”

He opens his mouth, closes it, then opens it again and then has to admit that he’s fucking speechless and he doesn’t know how to take it. Well, _shit_. The last thing he was expecting was for her to drag out _those_ essays and dump on him the equivalent of a damned h-bomb while informing him that they never were as terrible as he always assumed, not that it _matters_ , but —

“You know, if you don’t buy it I can rewrite you correct assessments of each single one on here.”

“You’d do _what_ ,” Jaime blurts.

“Even the entire box if you’d like.”

“Brienne, it’s like _fifty_ of them.”

“I have time.”

She holds his stare, and fuck, she _means it_ , and he doesn’t even know how to take it, but —

“Fine, take a few and see if you don’t get bored. You can have the others if it’s not the case.”

“Oh, I doubt it,” she says, and then picks another three from the pile and stuffs them in her bag before going back on the ladder to take down the rest of his posters.

He’s honestly thankful that she doesn’t push it, and he sort of expects her to give the notebooks back to him before she leaves, but she brings them with instead, along with a few of the already packed boxes she said she’d leave at his brother’s before going out to see Sansa Stark who is back for spring break, and he’s not going to tell her to _not_ see her best friend to hang out with him when she hasn’t seen her since Christmas.

He looks back at the half-empty room now — without the posters, the records he packed and the books on the shelf it looks almost as bad as the one he uses to fuck other people in. Except for the quilt over the bed, he supposes.

Shit, he _hates_ the look of it now, but it’s not like he has any choices, and so he gets ready and takes a shower and braces himself for the five people he’ll have coming over from the next hour onward.

— —

Selyse Baratheon is _way_ worse than usual this time.

Considering that just a couple of days ago he’s learned that Stannis is, in fact, divorcing her, exactly as Jaime had figured he would because it was just a matter of time, he doesn’t even bother asking or guessing otherwise. He says nothing as he lets her rant as usual, except that then her nails dig into the skin on his back hard enough it tears and she pulls on his hair hard enough that she pretty much rips some out, not much but enough to fucking hurt, and of course she doesn’t ask if he needs to stop or anything.

She barely seems to have noticed it, for that matter. He brings her off twice during the night and lets her say her piece, then goes to the other bathroom to check the situation while she showers. Well, shit, he has three small gashes just under his shoulder blade, and it’s a damned bitch to reach there to disinfect them — she’s already dressing by the time he’s out.

“It’ll be an extra twenty-five,” he says, dispassionately.

“Beg your pardon?” She asks.

“We never agreed that you could tear skin off me, and I’m not counting the hair. You know how it works.”

She glares at him. “You know he’s divorcing me.”

“So what, you can’t afford the extra because it’s not _his_ money anymore?” He shrugs. “I can compromise as much as an extra twenty. Sorry but the rules are the same for everyone.”

She sneers. “Except that little bitch Brienne Tarth, huh?”

Suddenly, his blood runs cold, and not just for how she threw that insult so casually when Brienne is the _farthest_ from that he could imagine. “Excuse me?”

“Come on,” she says, “don’t you think I didn’t notice how she looked at you that one night and that she comes here every other week? I don’t live too far, she always walks by.”

Well, fuck that. He could deny it, but he has a feeling it would be useless. Admittedly, Brienne _did_ tell him that if people found out she wouldn’t care, but still —

“She doesn’t pay extra because she doesn’t pay at _all_ ,” he finally says, hoping he won’t regret it. “And that’s all I’m saying about the subject. It’s not like you care about my private life or anything, so _please_ pay your share and think about it next time.”

Selyse doesn’t look too happy for it, of course, but she eventually gives him a twenty. It’s used and half-torn, but he takes it anyway, no point in arguing.

“Enjoy your extras until you can,” she finally says, putting on her coat.

“… And what would _that_ mean now?” He asks, feeling a slight chill run down his back for _how_ she said it.

“People are talking,” she smiles slightly. “And they’re getting fed up with you being here.”

Before he can ask her any further information, she’s gone down the stairs.

Well, _fuck that_. Now what the hell does she even mean? He has no idea, but he doesn’t like it. Technically, it’s no news. People have been fed up with him being _here_ for ages, what would be different about it _now_?

He shakes his head, puts the battered twenty with the rest of his savings, closes the tin box he keeps them in, pushes it at the back of his closet and goes to bed. Tomorrow he’ll try to find out what the hell she meant.

Now he’s too damned tired to even think about it.

— —

He smells fire.

He’s also in the middle of a nightmare about fucking Aerys Targaryen in which his daughter asked him

( _as she had in real life_ )

_does your father hurt your mother like mine does_ , and he had asked _how_ , and she had said _when the fire’s lit in the chimney sometimes he makes her put her hand inside it_ and he had said of course not while remembering the smell of those cigarettes years ago, and so for a moment he thinks it’s just part of the damned nightmare but then he feels heat and he opens his eyes and _oh fuck his door is on fucking fire_ and he’s awake in a moment, scrambling out of the bed and looking at the flames eating up the wooden floor, and _fuck fuck fuck_ what the hell, what happened, who did this, did Selyse Baratheon sort of _hint_ about it —

He can’t think about it now. He _can’t_. He needs to act and he can’t get out of the door because it’s on fucking fire and he’s on the first floor which means that the stars are most likely on fire, too, and in a few minutes this entire trap is going to crumble down on itself — there are flames already lapping at the closet and _oh shit there’s all his money inside it_ and there’s smoke all over his mouth and in his eyes and they’re _burning_ and he can’t —

He breathes in, opens the right door, entirely aware that the flames are coming _fast_ , and maybe he should find some piece of clothing to put around the box but all of most of clothing was in the packed boxes which _are on damned fire_ and the others he had were in the side of the closet that’s burning already, so he can’t waste time with that now. Well, fuck that, he’ll deal with that later. He reaches for the box barehanded and it’s _fucking scalding_ but it doesn’t matter, and then he turns and stares at the window — there are a few bushes underneath, and it’s not _too_ tall, at most he’ll break a leg if he jumps —

Right. _Right_ , he can do that, he decides, there’s no other way, and then he sees that his fucking trousers are catching on fire and he puts it out with his right hand until it’s small but it _hurts_ , fuck if it hurts, and then his entire closet is burning and he’s sure he can smell gasoline and it’s crawling towards the bed —

Well.

He has one go at this. He grabs Brienne’s quilt from the top of the bed, throws it around his shoulders, holds on to the tin box with his burned right hand that he can barely _feel_ now, and then he runs towards the window as the fucking floor heats up so much his bare feet hurt, good thing the window was open, and he jumps down from it hoping that he doesn’t break anything as he does, and for some miracle he lands on his feet even if the moment they touch the leaves underneath a spike of pain goes all over his muscles, and his left hand is shaking like there’s no tomorrow as a few people come up on the road but stay far, as if they can’t bring themselves to come closer, and then he starts coughing as that smoke fills his lungs up more and more and he can’t fucking _move_ and he can barely see shit because everything is blurry and there’s smoke in his eyes, too, and he thinks he’s crying because they _burn_ and his entire face feels wet and fuck is he smelling his own burned flesh, he probably _is_ and he wants to throw up and he needs to move but no one is coming forward and he’s coughing again and _again_ —

“Fuck’s sake, will anyone call the firefighters or _what_?”

Wait, that was —

A moment later a large hand has closed around his arm and Sandor Clegane out of everyone is dragging him away from his house and that’s probably a good thing because the heat was scalding and right, he lives nearby and he never sleeps, he probably saw —

Someone says they will and runs back wherever the fuck they came from. Jaime just thinks he can’t stop his eyes from tearing up for all the damned smoke inside them and he can barely feel his fingers and he just hopes the quilt hasn’t caught on fire now —

“Fuck,” Sandor says again, “what in the fresh hell just happened?”

“Don’t know,” he croaks, coughing as his lungs still feel filled up with smoke, “I woke up and the entire place was like this.” He coughs some more, hard enough it’s fucking painful, and then Sandor moves the blanket away to check at what he’s holding against his chest —

“Lannister, for — screw that, you need a hospital.”

Jaime’s cold suddenly runs cold.

“No, I don’t, I’ll be fine —”

“Fuck’s sake, that hand of yours is covered in damned blisters and you can’t stop coughing, you _do_ need a damned hospital.”

Maybe he does, _maybe_ , but —

“Wasted time, they won’t take me,” he says, but when Sandor drags him further down the street he doesn’t protest. He couldn’t even if he wanted, since he’s taken by a fit of coughing again.

“Yeah, well, I’ll make them. Fuck’s sake, did you leave the stove on?”

“I didn’t —” He coughs again. “I didn’t even eat this evening.”

“Well, it _did_ smell like fuel,” Sandor rasps, talking more to himself than to Jaime, but then he shakes his head. “Fuck that, you can deal with it later.” He drags Jaime forward until he’s thrown into a car’s passenger seat and his feet are hurting like hell because of course he walked on asphalt even if he can’t even remember how far they had to go, and he clutches the damned quilt around him even as his hand _burns_ and burns —

He closes his eyes as he coughs, _again_.

— —

When he opens them again, Sandor’s shouting at some nurse and putting the fear of whatever God she believes in into her because a moment later they’ve taken both box and quilt and thrown them at Sandor as they lay him down on a stretcher and he hears a doctor saying he needs morphine and _Jesus Christ what’s with that fucking hand now_ , and then he passes out and he hopes that it’s quick and as painless as possible also because he can’t afford _this_ now he can’t he can’t he _can’t_ —

He passes out again.

— —

When he opens his eyes, he can’t feel _shit_ and there’s an IV in his arm and Tyrion’s sitting at the left side of his bed looking like someone who hasn’t slept in days.

“The hell,” he croaks, feeling strangely numb, but if the IV is feeding him morphine as he thinks it is… it makes sense now, doesn’t it.

“Fuck, _good_ , you’re awake,” Tyrion says at once, a hand going to his shoulder. “What the fuck happened?”

“You tell me,” Jaime says, “I woke up and the entire damned place was on fire, I jumped from the window and fucking Sandor Clegane was the only one who bothered to drag me here and that’s everything I know. No one was even calling the firefighters or whatever.”

“Well,” Tyrion says, “it’s been one night, they said they want to keep you for another at least, I knew Clegane dragged you here because _he_ warned me… and I guess you’re moving in earlier than scheduled?”

“Guess so,” Jaime agrees, and then his eyes fall on his right hand.

It’s completely covered in gauze, and that he expected, but the moment he tries to flex his fingers —

Nothing happens.

“Tyrion, _what the fuck_ —”

“Hey,” Tyrion says, “don’t push it, the doctor I talked to said that it got burned pretty damn bad and it might have damaged some muscles or whatever but if you take care of it you might regain partial motion. _If you take care of it_.”

He wishes he was hearing good news. But if it got burned _pretty damned bad_ —

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” he says, suddenly realizing the implications of it.

“Jaime, what —”

“If — shit, if it’s like _that_ then how am I supposed to —” He starts, and then realizes that there’s no way he’s ever working again at the same rates he used to have if he has a right hand that doesn’t work and is _burned_ on top of that. And there’s nothing else he _knows_ , shit, and it was the fucking dominant one so he can’t even presume to —

“Christ,” Tyrion interrupts him, “you don’t _have_ to, all right?”

“I — of course I have to, what else —”

“Slow the fuck down already, how about that?”

What — Jaime doesn’t think he’s ever heard his brother this close to losing his shit at _him_ ever, and so he shuts up and lets him talk.

“Right. Let’s go over it again. You don’t have to pay me rent and you can have the couch as long as it takes you to get your shit together and while I know that you think you’re only good at fucking people, there _are_ jobs you could do without experience. But there’s no fucking hurry and I’m just glad you didn’t burn to a crisp, so how about you take it easy for once and stop assuming that you can’t just spend three weeks doing nothing and putting your shit back together?”

For a moment, it sounds all so foreign and improbable and impossible, and the idea that he can stay somewhere just putting his shit together like _this_ is even more far-fetched, but —

No. He knows Tyrion meant it. He did.

“All right,” he whispers. “Sorry, I just —”

“And stop apologizing already. Well, I’ve got to go to work now or Bronn’s going to burn the diner down, but I’ll be back in the afternoon. Do I tell your girlfriend —”

Suddenly, as much as he wants to see her, the idea of Brienne seeing him like _this_ makes him want to throw up. It would be — she already — no.

No, he can’t. She can’t. He couldn’t take it if she saw him and disappointment crossed her pretty, blue eyes, too.

He shakes his head. “I think I’ll sleep the damned day off,” he sighs. “Don’t bother. I mean, tell her what happened but that if I’m out tomorrow it’s just — she doesn’t have to waste time coming here.”

“Good grief,” Tyrion sighs, “she wouldn’t see it as a _waste of time_ , but whatever you want. I’ll see you later. And please don’t do anything stupid in the meantime.”

“I’m stuck on a fucking bed, Tyrion.”

“That wouldn’t stop you from _that_ and we both know it,” he says, sounding relieved, and Jaime has to laugh, a bit, because fair enough, he was about to do that before.

He watches Tyrion leave, then closes his eyes and tries to sleep some more.

— —

It _sort of_ works.

He wakes up at midday because the nurse insists on feeding him lunch, and he almost throws it up when he sees the way she glares at him, but he’s too high to give a fuck, and then he goes back to sleep just to wake up at three PM with his face covered in tears as he wakes up from some other nightmare where flames engulfed him before he could jump and someone who sounded like Cersei laughed in the background, and he it hits him in the face for the first time that while he _had_ brought to his brother’s the most important stuff —

His clothes are gone, _all_ of them, because he hadn’t packed any yet, the damned fencing trophy is gone because he hadn’t packed it with the things Brienne brought to the diner, his aunt’s fucking quilt is gone, _anything_ he brought from the manor is gone, his fucking notebooks from school are gone, not that it’s much of a loss in the first place, _everything_ is gone and maybe it wasn’t the _important_ stuff he had put away already but he didn’t need that, he _didn’t need that_ , and now he doesn’t even have two fucking functioning hands and what use is he even? Who the _fuck_ would even want to waste time with him except his brother, maybe? Oh, Brienne probably would say it’s not a problem and she would _mean_ it, except that before he was already a hindrance, now — now if they ever could hope to plan a damned future, he’d be —

Fucking useless.

_As always._

He turns his head and lets salty tears fall into the pillow. He figures the nurse’s opinion of him can’t get worse, anyway.

— —

The day after, they charge him seven hundred dollars for the stay.

He feels moderately glad that it wasn’t more than that and that while it’s almost a fifth of his savings gone, at least it’s not _all_ of his savings gone.

They give him back Brienne’s quilt, too. It’s slightly charred in places, but somehow it didn’t catch on fire. He folds it and brings it wordlessly with when Sandor shows up and says he’ll drive him to the diner.

“Thanks,” Jaime tells him on the way. “I mean, you didn’t have to show up.”

“Please,” Sandor replies, “I don’t sleep at night half of the time and I’ve had enough fucking bad experiences with fire to give a fuck if other people do. Just, take care of that hand.”

“Are you _worried_?”

The other man snorts. “I haven’t survived what happened to my face by not taking care of that fucking mess when it happened, Lannister.”

He drops him in front of the diner. He drops his meager bag of hospital things on the sofa, then Tyrion tells him that he closed today, also because they have to go to the police’s and press charges. He doesn’t think it’ll be worth shit, but he follows Tyrion anyway.

— —

It’s _not_ worth shit.

The local sheriff informs him that they already went on location and it was most likely an electric short-circuit or maybe _he_ left the stove turned on. When Jaime said he smelled gasoline and Clegane did, too, he’s told he made it up and that Clegane’s sense of smell is most likely fucked to hell and back, and that the case is closed and he should take better care of his kitchen.

Of fucking course.

“Do you think —” Tyrion asks as they walk back into the diner.

Jaime shrugs. “That Father was behind it? Who fucking knows. Selyse Baratheon was saying some ominous shit before, so who knows if the town’s local decency brigade decided to burn me alive in there. Whatever. It doesn’t matter.”

“Jaime —”

“Never mind. I think I could sleep now,” he says, heading upstairs. Then he closes the door behind him, drops on the sofa, grabs the quilt, throws it over himself and closes his eyes.

He’s too fucking tired for anything else.

— —

“Lannister, you goddamned _idiot_ , your girlfriend has something for you.”

Jaime, who had been sitting against the door, the quilt still around his shoulders, is tempted to ignore the shit out of Sandor Clegane and his newfound tendency to show up and give a damn for _some fucking reason_.

“My girlfriend is better off spending time with _her_ friend,” he replies, weakly.

Oh, he _wants_ her to come up, but — but since he left the hospital he just felt like he couldn’t even _think_ or move or do anything beyond eating whatever Tyrion left him outside the door, sleeping and go to the bathroom. He hasn’t even showered in days and he probably reeks, not that he knows, and he hasn’t undone the gauze on his hand even if he has cream he should put on it and shit, but just the idea of looking at it makes him want to retch. She deserves —

She saw him at some pretty damned low points, but _this_ —

He doesn’t want her to see him like _this_ , too, and he hates himself for it, but — but he _can’t_ —

“And I thought _I_ was the worst when it came to managing my shit,” Sandor says. “Whatever. She’s down here and she won’t leave until she has news or until I give this to you, so just fucking take it.”

He slides something under the door. Then something else. Then _something else_.

Oh.

It’s three of those four notebooks of his that she brought back home when she was helping him pack.

“She said she hasn’t had time to go through the fourth yet and to call whenever you’re good. And we’re after closing time and she’s sitting down there, so I don’t think she’s gonna leave anytime soon. Good fucking luck,” Sandor says, and then Jaime hears his steps going down, and he reaches for the first notebook with shaking hands. It’s the same one she had read from before. He opens it, wondering why is she even doing this _now_ , what does it even matter —

He goes to the second essay he had written down there. It was some dumb creative writing thing that only said _make up a story_. He had gone for one of the ridiculous things he used to make up for Tyrion back in the day when he couldn’t even _understand him_ so what was even the point except that it was fun — it was some kind of rehash of a dumb fairytale his babysitter had read him and Cersei years before except that he made the knight a woman and the princess a man just to spice things up. His teacher rated it F, of course, because never mind the spelling mistakes, but it was messy and had no internal coherence or whatever the fuck it meant, never mind that knights being women and so on meant he didn’t have clear ideas of how the real world worked.

The original evaluation is also scribbled away in red. Next to it she wrote —

_This shows great imagination and a lot of resourcefulness — you could have used trimming it down a bit because quite a lot happens, but that’s better than nothing. B because of that and the usual mistakes, but keep on like this!!_

What —

He turns to the next page.

The assignment was to talk about _your family_. He said his mother was dead and that he did love his sister and father but he hated that they didn’t love his brother and he wished all of them would just get along and he hated that he couldn’t make them.

That also was rated F, for the spelling mistakes and because it was obviously made up and showed that he must have had wanted attention beyond necessary because his teacher knew his father and she also taught Cersei in the girls section and how could he say _that_ when both of them only spoke in such loving terms of Tyrion, even if he caused his own mother’s death?

He remembers having cried for the entire afternoon when he got _that_ grade. No one ever knew, of course. He took care to make sure no one would see it.

The evaluation is, as usual, crossed over in red.

_It shows how seriously you took this assignment and how honestly. I was at a loss for words. It might have some spelling mistakes, but it doesn’t matter. A_

He moves a hand to his mouth as he flips to the last page, the one with the half-assed short essay he got graded not so badly when he was _done_ trying to put any effort into it.

The C-valued assessment is canceled, too.

On the new evaluation, there’s a glaring _F_.

He reads it.

_This is nowhere near what you can do and it shows. Spelling mistakes or not, you weren’t even trying. Do better next time_.

He bites down on his left hand for a moment, because if he didn’t he’d have — he doesn’t know what. Screamed? Cried? He doesn’t know, but suddenly it hits him in the face that essay or not, he _isn’t_ even trying right now, and he suddenly hates that he has spent he doesn’t know how long like _this_ even if it couldn’t have been longer than a few days, and then he goes back and reads the other new evaluations she left him, and fuck but the lowest grade she gave was a B- at some point, and it was still praising the general idea if not the execution, and by the time he’s gone through them all he just — he can’t —

He grabs the phone that’s connected to the one downstairs, breathing so fast he thinks he might faint.

“Send her up,” he says when Tyrion answers before slamming the phone back into its cradle, and fuck he still hasn’t taken a shower nor looked at himself in the mirror nor done _anything_ —

But it doesn’t matter as the door’s handle moves and he lets the quilt fall down from his shoulders. Brienne doesn’t barge into the room but she does open the door with a certain urgency and fuck, she also looks like she hasn’t slept in three days, wait, was that for _him_ , she didn’t have to, she didn’t, and for a moment he’s sure she’ll look at him, decide he’s a lost cause and leave, but she just swears under her breath, closes the door behind her, moves closer and takes a good look at him —

“You know what,” she tells him, and it’s obvious she sounds glad that she’s up here but she also looks more than a tad worried, “you really need a shower.”

He didn’t know what he had expected, but the moment she says it, delivering it that straight and with eyes brimming with relief, he just —

He doesn’t deserve her, he knows, but he half-laughs for the first time since this entire shitshow started as he moves closer. “Yeah,” he agrees, “I guess I do. Uh, sorry if — I didn’t mean to, I just —”

“It’s fine,” she says, “or better, it’s _not_ , but I think you can hear it later. Christ, have you even checked that hand?” She asks, looking down at it.

“I’ve barely done anything since I left the hospital,” he admits.

“You know what,” she says, “you can take that shower, then I can give that a look and then I’m going to tell you all the ways in which you should _never_ presume that I’d deserve better than your shit or whatever it is, how about it?”

She’s still smiling thinly as she speaks. He smiles back, giving her a barely-there nod. “Sounds good,” he admits, and then she finds out that there’s actually a tub in the bathroom so she runs him a bath instead, and if it reminds him of that other time it happened it’s only good news, he supposes — he lets her wash his hair again as he keeps the damned hand inside a plastic bag, and after he’s put on some of _her_ clothes that she brought over figuring that his own must need a wash or ten, she undoes the bandages around his hand. Shit. It’s red all over, _blistery_ , the skin obviously tender, and the moment she brushes her fingers against it he recoils in pain — it _hurts_ , damn it.

“I suppose you haven’t taken painkillers, have you?” She asks.

“… I might not,” he admits.

She shakes her head, then hands him one from the hospital’s bag, and after he assures her it kicked in, she proceeds on covering his ruined skin with the cream they gave him along with the painkillers and then she wraps it up again, so delicately he almost can’t feel it. Almost.

He moves over so she has space on the sofa, and the moment she sits on it he lets his head fall against her shoulder, and shit but _how_ did he even decide it was a good idea to let her go, even if he still doesn’t deserve her —

“Hey,” she says, her hand finding his hair, again, “just two things.”

“Shoot,” he shrugs minutely.

“I _know_ what you were thinking, but — you do realize that some of us didn’t sign up for relationships thinking it’s fine to run off at the first problem?”

“It’d hardly —”

“Please,” she says, “you _know_ most of your so-called problems never were like that to me. Anyway — I’d also appreciate it if you stopped deciding that I don’t deserve your shit or whatever. That’s up to _me_ to know.”

“Fair,” he sighs, moving closer. “I just — whatever, I don’t even have a justification. But in between shit going down in what, twelve hours, and everything else I didn’t even conceive otherwise. And these last few days were — shit. I don’t even remember what the fuck I did.”

She _does_ look worried at that, of course she would —

“Relax,” he says, “it’s not — the same thing as the crap with my sister. Fuck, I can’t believe I have to say _that_. How do you even put up with me?”

She rolls her eyes, her arm curling tighter around her shoulders.

“I don’t know,” she huffs, “last I checked, I was in love with you and that _usually_ means putting up with at least _some_ things, and I’ve known since the beginning. Really. It’s fine. And listen, you could have fucking _died_ and that hand could be worse off. We can figure this out and not necessarily _right now_ , okay?”

She’s looking at him with that intense stare again, the one that makes it obvious that she _means_ it, and he’s not too sure he believes he _can_ figure this shit out because he’s out of a job that he hated, he has no other skills to speak of, and he doesn’t even know where he _could_ start to figure his shit out —

But she said _we_ , didn’t she, and she also just told him —

“Guess what,” he manages to say, still feeling like his lungs won’t work properly, “I might be in love with you, too, and I think I got the best bargain out of the two of us, but — okay. Fine. Okay,” he agrees, and when she draws him closer he clings to her back and smells the damned lavender on her neck and he doesn’t know if he feels like crying or not but he _could_ if he wanted, and that’s — knowing that is enough, it _is_ , and so he just doesn’t move and breathes her in and maybe if she’s so sure they _will_ figure shit out, he’ll just — try to believe her, for now.

But as it is, he realizes that whatever went down he _is_ glad he didn’t end up engulfed in flames, and he’s not so sure that five years ago he’d have said the same, and he’s not so fucked up he can’t see it’s not a bad thing.

And even if they _don’t_ figure it out and he spends the next ten years waiting tables downstairs unless he ends up driving clients away, it doesn’t seem such a bad prospect, as long as he gets to not figure it out _with her_.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... I'm sorry but I swear the worst of the angst has passed. /o\


	7. show a little faith, there's magic in the night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which Brienne has a chance and a proposal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI HERE I AM FROM LIMITED INTERNET MIDDLE OF NOWHERE, have some 80% resolution while I work on the epilogue which will have the full one. Also have a break for the angst (more or less) and sorry for the lack of porn but you'll get it back next round ~~is2g it's going to be my own damned birthday present at this point~~ ;) apologies in advance for my - again - terrible attempts at writing Teenage Jaime Lannister Writing Poetry but I'm a prose person okay I tried.
> 
> Also: the springsteen reference in THIS one chapter are not abounding, *worse*. I should probably thank him for at least some three specific wordings and for one certain line in the end - if you're wondering if I structured the entire thing like *this* just so I could have an excuse to do it, guess what, you're right, sorry not sorry. any springsteen people reading this will be probably cackling to death right now but I regret nothing.
> 
> Aaaand I think there's really nothing else to say for now lest I spoil you any further so have fun and see y'all for the conclusion in a couple days hopefully <3

The entire place still smells like someone poured two tanks of gasoline on the entire property, and it’s been five days. Brienne doesn’t need to ask Sandor Clegane for confirmation of what she’s smelling. It’s burned into what charred remains of wood are scattered all over the property.

No way this was an accident.

“I suppose that the sheriff won’t hear any more about this, will he.” She doesn’t even bother putting it as a question. It would feel like insulting her own intelligence _and_ Clegane’s, for that matter.

“You wish,” he rasps back. “According to the youngest Lannister, they dismissed my take saying that _my_ own sense of smell was most likely screwed and I can assure you that I know it’s not. But it just means you can forget that they’ll give a damn.” He shrugs. “No fucking news whatsoever.”

It feels like he knows exactly what he’s talking about. She looks at the ruined side of his face, feeling her stomach clench. “You’re talking as if you’re speaking from experience.”

“Might be,” he shrugs. “I mean, you’d think that after _this_ happened, they’d at least ask me what went down.”

“They didn’t?”

“Nah. Didn’t even hear me out. My father telling ‘em it was an accident was good enough.”

Well, _shit_. Of course he’s not too trusting in their illustrious police system.

She looks back at what remains of the house: it’s all charred wood, some wires, a few pieces of the bathroom’s mirror, and the black skeleton of the house’s foundation along with the pillars is still somewhat holding up, but it’d probably fall down if she came close and pushed some of it just a bit. The firefighters certainly didn’t hurry when they were called.

On one side, it’s just… a sad sight. On the other, she _does_ have good memories of that house, or at least one room of that house, and seeing it all having gone up in flames this shortly is… unsettling, somehow.

Not that for Jaime it’s not _worse_.

Clegane turns to look at her. She’s sure they’re thinking the exact same thing, except that neither of them is voicing it.

She takes a breath and does after it becomes unbearable. “You think it was his ass of a father, don’t you?”

He shrugs. “You’ve got a better idea? I mean, you’d think it’d be too much even for him, but _mine_ lied about my brother, so I wouldn’t put anything past anyone at this point.”

She nods — it makes sense, doesn’t it. She can’t conceive that anyone would go as far as risking to kill their own son, fuck’s sake, but at this point she’s seen enough Lannister family ugliness to not rule anything out.

She looks back at the house. She had hoped she could salvage something, but everything is ashes and there’s no point in staying here much longer.

“And how is he doing?” Clegane asks, interrupting her reverie.

“Could be worse,” she says. He’s still more subdued than usual, he stares out of the window for too long and he’s slept like shit for the last few days, but he’s not spending the entire time _sleeping_ or doing nothing, and most important — “And he’s talking about it. Which I feared he wouldn’t, so… he’ll figure it out.”

Clegane nods, saying nothing. She can see his lips are pressed together. “I’ll ask around,” he finally says.

“Thanks,” she answers, immediately guessing _what_ he’d ask around about. “He’ll appreciate it, if anything.” Not that he doesn’t seem to be shocked that Clegane is actually giving a damn, which is just sad, if you ask her, but that’s another problem for another moment in time.

He looks at her strangely, as if he can’t figure _something_ important about her. Then he shakes his head. “Listen, not to pry or anything, I suppose you guessed already that —”

“You were the only customer of his that he didn’t completely hate or at least didn’t actually mind having over?” She smiles at him, figuring she should make him understand that _she really doesn’t mind_. “Come on, I’m not daft.”

“And you don’t mind?” He sounds skeptical. “I mean, it was _never_ —”

“Please,” she interrupts him, “I’ve met him because I gave him money to lose my damned virginity on my own terms and it was obvious from the moment we started being serious that what _we_ had wasn’t business. I wouldn’t have minded _that_ much that he fucked other people for a living if _he_ hadn’t hated it. Do you think I’d mind that he had some customers he didn’t hate or that didn’t treat him like shit? No, of course I don’t mind.”

She doesn’t know if Clegane’s looking at her with _respect_ or what, except that it’s not usually the look she receives from other men and she thinks she doesn’t mind it whatsoever.

“Well, your _boyfriend_ has been the one asshole who hasn’t made me feel like the fucking phantom of the Opera since _this_ happened,” he says, motioning towards his face, “regardless of whether we had business together or not. I think I owe it to him to at least _ask around_.”

“And I think he can use some friends, truth to be told,” she tells him, coming closer and putting a hand on his shoulder. It’s _weird_ to be next to a guy she doesn’t have to look down to, but she doesn’t mind. “Tell me if you find anything.”

“‘Course,” he says, not shrugging her off immediately. “Something tells me that in between the two of us we’d make sure that whoever did it repented at once.”

She does laugh at that, realizing that for the first time in her life that kind of joke is _not_ unwelcome whatsoever, and she tells him she’s down with it.

“Deal,” she tells him, moving her hand away.

“Then see you around, Tarth.”

“All things considered, I think you can call me Brienne,” she says, and then he shrugs and mutters something along the lines of feeling free to call him by name, and then he disappears back into town.

Brienne checks the clock — the diner closes in two hours and she _could_ go, but Jaime about begged her not to do it while others could see and he still doesn’t seem to grasp that at this point she can’t couldn't care less about what other people think, but she doesn’t want to push it. So she goes back home, figuring she’ll finish to re-evaluate his last notebook and that she’ll bring him some more clothes — hers are a bit large on him but they fit at least, and it’s not like he’s up to go shopping for more.

She heads to her room, takes the notebook from her desk and opens it to the last few pages that she had left to check — this one is from ninth grade, not that the teacher had been any better than the other two. Brienne tries to _not_ think about how seeing those evaluations awakened in her a plethora of homicidal instincts and reads on the new assignment.

It’s simply, _write a poem_. She already can predict that the grade will be an F by the amount of corrections _to the poem itself_ that she can see — spelling, metric and whatnot —, but she reads on anyway.

Her eyes have scanned just the first two lines when she guesses immediately what it is about, and for a moment she thinks that if Jaime knew _this_ was on the notebook she salvaged he wouldn’t want her to read it, but it’s too late and she knows and at this point she might as well go on.

She tries to not mind whatever bullshit his teacher had noted on the side.

Then her breath catches in her throat. It’s titled _A floor of glass_ , except that there’s an _e_ in place of the _a_ in the last word. There’s a red, angry note, _fourteen years old and you still can’t spell glass?_ , and good luck to her resolution to not mind the notes.

She reads on.

_The floor was glass._

_It wasn’t his fault that he didn’t see it._

_His fingers were red with blood like cherries._

_They were too small._

_It was sharp like blades._

_I said it was my fault and that I didn’t see it._

_The door closed._

_He said lift your shirt and it was stained with cherries too._

_The air was cigarette smoke._

_I hate smelling smoke._

_Then it burned thrice._

_I hated that more._

_He said maybe I’d learn now._

_She said maybe I’d learn now._

_I’m a slow learner._

_Better me than him_.

Brienne _never_ asked about the cigarette burn scars on his hip.

Now she thinks she’d have rather never known because she’s feeling like she’ll throw up, and then she reads the notes and of course other than pointing out every single spelling mistake, they take points away because it was supposed to be a _sonnet_ and he got wrong the scheme, the meter and the entire structure, and then it reads _this is an incoherent mess that makes no sense and if you can’t use metaphors properly it’s better if you just don’t_ , and shit but if she guessed right from what Tyrion hinted once when _that_ episode happened he was twelve, so it means he sat on it for _two years_ before writing that —

Fuck.

She thinks she understands a lot of things now, and she can hardly fault him for being so taken aback that _people actually care about him_ , and at this point she honestly doesn’t know how she’d react if she ever ran into Cersei again or worse, his damned father.

She hopes she’ll never find out.

She grabs a red pen, she deletes all the other notes, then scribbles down on the empty side of the page.

_This might not fit the scheme requirements, but after all modern poetry doesn’t care for them and in light of the fact that you decided to portray such a personal subject in such an honest way, we can forget it for once. Your metaphor use is actually on point and it packs a really heavy punch in such a small space, and the spelling mistakes honestly do not matter in the face of such an effort. A._

She’s glad that her hand didn’t shake at the end as she wrote the final line.

She turns the page.

_Describe the proudest moment of your life_.

She reads on.

It’s two filled pages, to the brink, telling that he always used to read to his brother even if it was hard sometimes but no one else would and Tyrion _did_ love it, and so he kept on doing it, but then when Tyrion was six he had realized that he got better at it to the point that he was faster than him, and so they switched places, and for a moment Brienne smiles again because it’s honestly heartwarming and she can somehow picture the moment so very clearly —

Her eyes fall on the evaluation.

It’s another F, of course, and not counting the spelling mistakes (as usual), the entire thing goes on saying that it’s somewhat telling that he’d choose a moment implying that he’s proud of his own shortcomings because who’d be happy that a six year old was better than him at reading, and such other bullshit.

Brienne can’t fucking believe that, even if she can believe a lot of things now. Including that last they discussed possible future employment, Jaime couldn’t seem to aim higher than waiting tables downstairs if his hand’s situation allowed it.

She checks the last three pages. They’re empty. She quickly cancels the previous evaluation, writes _BULLSHIT_ on the side, then compiles a new one — _it’s so nice to see that you and him care for each other so much and it transpires from each word. Check your spelling, but other than that, it’s perfect. A- —_ and then changes to a normal black pen. She wonders if she should do it or not, but then she figures it can’t hurt, and so she starts writing down on the now empty one. She doesn’t think it’ll have to be _long_ but she just — she has to _say it_ outside the new evaluation.

_I don’t know how it was possible that so many people would manage to fail you so thoroughly,_ she writes down, _but what I’ve read so far just shows that you never were the problem. It was them all along. Consider that it was them not deserving you and not any shortcoming on your side._

She puts the pen down, closes the notebook and then tries to find some more of her old clothes that she doesn’t use anymore — she manages to fish out some three pairs of jeans and a few shirts and another of her father’s jackets from when he was deployed, lighter than the one she uses for winter. She’s never worn this one somehow, she doesn’t know why —

She puts it in the pile, too, then packs it in a backpack along with the notebook and heads down the stairs just as her father walks inside the house.

“Hey,” he asks, sounding worried, “how is he doing?”

Brienne can’t be thankful enough that he’s been _this_ understanding and hasn’t had a single problem with her sleeping at the diner’s first floor every other night.

“Better than most would assume,” she settles on. “Hopefully it’ll get better soon. I’m going now, but if you need anything —”

“Brienne, _please_ , no need. Also I have a date later.”

Brienne, who is delighted that her father and Miss Harlaw are getting along so well, doesn’t try to hide that she’s happy for him. “Have fun then,” she says, “one of us damn well should.”

“Right,” he says, “about that, you mind giving your guy this?” He hands her a small envelope. “I figured I should send a get well message, at least.”

“Sure,” she smiles, putting it alongside the notebook. “I’m sure he’ll appreciate.”

“Uh, before you go,” he clears his throat. “I was thinking… you do know that if you both want to leave you _could_ ask for help?”

For a moment, she’s completely floored. That wasn’t what she had expected _at all_.

“What?”

“Come on,” her father says, “you hate it here, he did, too, and after this mess there’s no way he’ll find it easy to _stay_ here.

“I — I know,” she admits. “It’s just, I can’t ask you for —”

“Brienne, this house is what it is, but if you needed it… I mean, we are not talking about moving in together yet, but I think we might soon. It’s — going _well_ ,” he says. “If it was the case, I _could_ sell this one and give you what money comes out of it. I never wanted you to be stuck here, you know that?”

Brienne feels like she’ll cry. “Dad, it’s too much —”

“But it _wouldn’t_ if it meant that you’d get a chance at something better. Anyway, let me know.”

“I’ll — see to find a way that doesn’t come to that, but — thank you,” she manages to say. It _is_ tempting, surely, but it’s too much of a risk and she couldn’t ask it of him, and if only she had a better job or could find one, but — _here_? Undoable. And in between them they wouldn’t have enough savings to rent an apartment in New York for more than three months, probably. But she does reassure him that she _will_ consider it, and then she leaves, heading for the diner —

Just to see Sandor Clegane walking towards her when she’s halfway there, and then he says they need to talk, but possibly with Tyrion present.

“Not Jaime?” She asks.

“Maybe later,” he mutters. He trails alongside her and she wonders what it is that he could have found out in barely two hours, but she supposes she’ll find out very soon.

— —

“So,” Tyrion asks them as they sit down, “what’s the poison?”

Sandor clears his throat. “I went nosing around with some people I knew from juvie.”

Right. Because he landed there at some point when he was sixteen for a bar fight, Brienne remembers, but then he pretty much walked straight since he left. Not all of his acquaintances did, after.

“Specifically, _that_ bar where most of them hang out. There was some noise being made so I asked. Now… Lannister, have any of those assholes in that Bloody Mummers gang ever worked for your father?”

The hell — Brienne knows them even too well, it’s some seven people who have been in and out of jail for years who are usually behind half of the minor criminal activities going on in the county, but they never get jailed for something bad enough to keep them in more than a year at most.

“Not officially.” His skin turned pale, though. “But I’m pretty sure he sometimes employed them to beat up a few people whose land he wanted to buy. Why, are they involved with —”

“No proof whatsoever, but five of ‘em weren’t accountable for the night of the fire and two of ‘em were found dead in a ditch today at lunchtime,” Sandor rasps. “Coincidentally, Vargo Hoat as in _the leader_ , and some ass named Rorge who was… really fucking unhinged, though he could keep that under control half of the time.”

Silence falls, only for Bronn to break it as he cleans up the counter.

“Seems a bit too much of a coincidence to be one,” he says.

“Fuck if it is,” Sandor agrees, “and that’s where I tell you that I know where the other three live and that at least one of ‘em is the kind who _will_ talk if his friends aren’t around.”

“Does that mean we could pay him a visit?” Brienne asks.

“I see you’re quick on the uptake,” Sandor smirks, standing up.

“Yeah, I’m coming with,” she says, leaving the backpack on the table. “Can you look at it while we’re gone?”

“Just don’t do anything exceedingly stupid,” Tyrion says, nodding.

“I think in between him and me, we’re fine,” Brienne smirks back, and maybe she won’t get to punch in the face either Tywin or Cersei Lannister nor Jaime’s former teachers, but if this guy turns out to have been behind it —

Well.

She’s not going to promise anything either way.

— —

On the way, Sandor tells her that the ass in question goes by Shagwell even if it’s not his real name, he still lives with his mother but as far as he knows she can’t hear much anymore so she won’t call the police on them if they’re noisy, and he’s laid low for the last five days, at least according to his juvie acquaintances.

Brienne says nothing and follows him to the house — it’s on the edge of town but on the opposite side, but it doesn’t take them more than fifteen minutes to get there. Advantages of living in shitty small towns.

The moment he opens the door, he about slams back the door.

Brienne is nowhere near surprised and puts her foot forward to make sure he doesn’t close it, and he’s no match for her — she gets it open in a moment, letting Sandor in and pin the guy to the wall, and her adrenaline disappears a moment after the guy doesn’t even try to put up a fight and says he’ll tell them everything as long as they don’t kill him, and it’s just so pitiful she can’t even muster the will to actually break his nose.

He _does_ talk. Very fast.

Apparently Tywin Lannister _did_ pay them off to burn the house and to spread around rumors that people were getting _too_ fed up with Jaime’s business and wanted him gone (so that’s most likely what Selyse Baratheon was going on about, Brienne reasons), but he had specified that he wanted it to be a warning and that they should do it when it was empty, and Hoat did give the four of them instructions to do that as soon as Jaime was out, but the evening they set off to do it they were all drunk, Rorge said that Jaime was always at home anyway so why would they need to wait, and wouldn’t it have been a thousand times better if they just did it just _then_ , and none of them saw a problem with it drunk as they were, and so they threw fuel on the sides and set the thing on fire and ran, except that the moment it turned out they _had_ almost burned Jaime alive his father was not too happy with the final result of their efforts.

At that point one of the others, he goes by Urswyck and he’s apparently the smartest of the bunch, had seen it fit to go to Lannister first and blame the entire mess on Hoat not supervising the entire thing and Rorge going against orders, and that’s all _this_ one asshole knows.

He pleads with them to leave him alone.

She kicks him in the middle of his crotch just because she _can_ and she needs to kick something, then slams the door on her way out.

“D’you think his father had them murdered?” Sandor asks as they head back for the diner.

“I think it’s the most likely explanation,” she sighs. “But if there are dead people involved in this fucking mess I doubt poking that hornet’s nest will be a good idea. Nor that we could prove it either way.”

“No,” Sandor agrees immediately. “No, it wouldn’t. If you want my fucking advice, he needs to get out of here as soon as possible.”

“I’m not disagreeing,” she sighs. She thinks of her father’s offer. “If only there was a way to do it that didn’t imply risking coming back in three months.”

Sandor shrugs, not telling her she’s wrong. “Well, I think nothing’s going to happen for _now_. Still, the moment he’s up for it, I’d consider your fucking options.”

“I will,” she says, meaning it. Except that she just — that confrontation left her even more frustrated than before, and she thinks she needs to think. She checks the time. It’s half an hour until the diner closes for good.

“Do you mind telling Tyrion I’ll drop by in a bit? I — I need to clear my head.”

Sandor gives her a nod and leaves, and she turns to the other side, heading straight for the side of town that confines with a small wood — it’s not where she needs to be, but it’s the shortest way that doesn’t require crossing roads.

She stalks through it until she finally finds herself in a corn field that hasn’t been farmed since the forties, and she goes straight through dead plants and debris until she stops when she’s reasonably far from civilization, and then she drops to her knees and punches the ground, knowing that it’s useless and she’ll just hurt herself, but — she needs to hit _something_ and so she pretends that the ground is Cersei’s mouth with that exquisite bow of her lips always perfectly painted in bright red that would look hideous on her own too big ones, and then even if she only has seen Tywin Lannister’s face in pictures she pictures that the next patch of ground is his damned elegant and straight nose so it’d be as broken as _hers_ , and then she does it again and again until her knuckles are covered in blood and she realizes that maybe she hit a bit too hard.

But —

She can’t do much more, and she _hates_ it. She hates that Jaime still thinks _he_ got the best bargain in this relationship because she doesn’t really think it’s true — he has no idea of what she feels when he’ll openly admit to be turned on by all the things she’s always hated about herself (her height, her too many muscles, her large and mannish hands, her broken nose, her strength) _and_ at the same time he’ll encourage her to go around in blue flowery dresses, he has no idea of how _that_ had made her feel at peace with her own looks for the first time in her life, he has no idea of how being with someone who seems to value her that much has made her feel more confident, he has no idea that since they’re together she doesn’t feel like her looks are trapping her, or at least he doesn’t know how deep it went.

She’s _better_ because she met him, and she hates that not only he doesn’t know, but he seems to not even conceive that it’s _because of him_ and not because she’s innately good or whatever.

And of course he doesn’t, because everyone else has worked to convince him that he doesn’t matter _that_ much in the great scheme of things when she just wants him to know for sure that he _does_ and she couldn’t want anyone better nor _anyone else_ period, and the fact that she can blame his father and sister for most of it is even _worse_ because she can’t imagine doing such a thing to any child of hers nor to any sibling of hers, had the only one she had survived polio when he was six.

But the worst thing is that when she knocked on his door, losing her virginity on her own terms was about the biggest thing she could ask for. She had no other prospect, she wouldn’t have even considered leaving here, she would have never put herself together enough to show up in front of the people who bet on it wearing a damned dress and _liking_ it, she had completely given up on any of that. And then _he_ happened and he didn’t make her feel wrong anymore and now she just — he doesn’t have a clue of how much he prevented her from turning into the worst version of herself and she wants him to know and she wants to do _something_ for him that’s not inconsequential or short-term.

 _As if._ She should have a clue of _how_. She’s never told him that she dared to imagine a future where they were somewhere far enough from here and no one knew them but they could occasionally come back to visit her father and in which they would share a small apartment whose walls she’d be glad to cover in his movie posters, and where they would just think about putting all that bullshit behind them and they’d have better jobs and better lives, but now she thinks she _wants_ it except she doesn’t know _how_ to get there without asking her father to sell the only valuable thing he has to his name, and she doesn’t want to do that.

She stands up, feeling caught in a crossfire she isn’t sure she likes, and she wipes blood from her knuckles. She wants to scream and maybe she does, it’s not like anyone is going to hear her, and then she realizes her throat hurts and it’s not helping anyone and she really should go back now, but —

She turns to look at the field she’s leaving behind her. The plants are high and out of control, enough that it feels like they will eat her alive, even if most of them are dead and crunch under her feet.

Same as that damned fucking small town that doesn’t deserve either of them.

 _You won’t have me or him_ , she thinks, and then she heads back towards it, a head-on collision smashing in her guts still and that damned thought on her mind.

_We need to get out._

_Together or nothing._

And she can’t afford waiting for the right moment or the right circumstance. She needs to make one for herself right now or she’ll be waiting all her life and she _cannot_.

She really cannot.

— —

“Woah,” Jaime says as she comes inside Tyrion’s apartment, “the _fuck_ did you do to your hand?”

“Bashing in the face of one of the assholes who put your house on fire didn’t feel like a victory, so I went to punch the ground in a field. Never mind. I needed to let it out.”

“… On one side I’m flattered,” he says, reaching for his own disinfectant, “but, you know, maybe you should avoid doing _that_. One of us should have both hands functioning.”

“I know,” she sighs, letting him clean the superficial scratches for a change. “But really, I’m okay. I suppose Sandor showed up?”

“He did,” Jaime confirms. “Are you friends now or what?”

“Why, we can’t be?” She keeps her tone light as he shakes his head.

“Nah, it’s just weird. But not the bad kind of.”

He says nothing else as he finishes, and she says nothing as she unwraps his bandages and applies that antiseptic cream to his burns — they look slightly less inflamed now, but she knows it’ll be a while before it goes back to a semblance of normal. He doesn’t look at it as she wraps it up again. She doesn’t point it out.

“I’ve got something for you,” she finally says after she’s done.

“You don’t have to —”

“Don’t,” she stops him, and opens the backpack. “First, these should be enough of a change to go on for a bit.” She puts the clothes on the sofa next to him, waiting for him to go through all of them, but of course he doesn’t refuse any. He raises his eyebrows at the camo jacket — it’s better for the springtime, and it’s also old and battered and it has her father’s name sewn on the right shoulder. “Are you sure he’s fine with _me_ having this?”

“Considering that he sent you a card, I think so,” she explains. “Also, I haven’t worn it in years and he wouldn’t wear it again, being that he thinks Vietnam is the worst idea we ever had and I agree.”

“I’m not disagreeing with either of you,” he says, but then he puts it on. It fits him well enough, not counting that it’s large on the shoulders and maybe a bit too long. “But it’ll do for now.”

“Feel free to change the patches,” she tells him. “Also, that’s the card.” She hands it to him. “And that’s the last notebook.”

“… Wait,” he says, taking both, “you _really_ finished that one too?”

“Sure,” she smiles back, “I told you I’d go through all of them if I could. And I didn’t get bored.”

“Sure you didn’t,” he shakes his head fondly, and then he sits down on the sofa, and so what if it makes her feel _good_ to see him wearing her clothes? She sits down as well, glancing at his feet — they’re also bandaged but he did scrape them badly enough when he ran from the fire. He opens her father’s note first, and she can see that he hadn’t expected whatever’s written on it from the way his eyes go wide and turn wet for a moment before he wipes them and puts it carefully away.

“Just… thank him,” he blurts a moment later, and she says of course she will. Then he opens the notebook and she can see that he realizes _which_ one is it the moment he sees the first page.

“Fuck,” he says, “ _this_ survived the damned thing out of — all of them?”

“Not sorry to say,” she says, squeezing his left hand. “I can go take a drink downstairs if you don’t want me here for it.”

“It’s —”

“Jaime, come on, I read it. I get it. Really, I can just discuss how much did your brother likes that new author Mccarthy while you’re up here, it’s fine.”

“What, that book you gave him a month ago where there’s pseudo-Biblical drama going down in Tennessee and some guy finds a body in a ditch in his land and fucking builds a shrine to it that he can’t stop raving about?”

“Maybe,” she winks.

“Fine, fine, go discuss your dysfunctional literature. I’ll come down.”

 _Good_ , she thinks as she squeezes his shoulder and goes. He hasn’t gone downstairs since he came here, so that’s… progress, she supposes.

Tyrion is only too happy to discuss _The Orchard Keeper_ as it turns out, and they do for some fifteen minutes, until they both stop because what sounded like a very, very loud sob came from upstairs, and Tyrion says he’ll go check on things, but Brienne shakes her head.

“Don’t,” she says, “it’s fine.”

“… Do you know what’s up?”

She sighs. “Before the fire, we found some of his old notebooks with English assignments and so on. They were all graded unfairly and I told him I was more than willing to re-grade them for him. Fairly. I took four and then the rest got burned in the fire, but the last one I read… let’s say it had specifically personal essays that none of his teachers ever bothered to read properly. I don’t think he wants anyone around while he reads them. Which is why I’m here.”

Tyrion nods, looking pensive. “What do you mean with unfair?”

“Well, they’re all the lowest possible grade or close to it, and it’s obvious that it was because they couldn’t grasp that the wrong spelling wasn’t _laziness_ and because those essays didn’t say what they wanted to read.” She shakes her head. “Did you ever happen to read any?”

“No,” Tyrion shakes his head. “He always refused the few times I asked. Probably because if he assumed they really were bad — never mind.”

“Maybe ask him again,” she says. “You know, most of them are about you.”

“… They’re _what_.”

“About you. Or concern you. It’d be endearing if you didn’t know what else came with the background.”

“Don’t you tell me,” Tyrion mutters. “Sometimes I think I’d be dead if he hadn’t been around.”

“Well,” she goes on, “it was obvious from reading them. And I just — fuck, if I think I _can’t_ do that job when I wanted to and those assholes who graded his stuff got paid for it and most likely still get paid for it I want to punch the wall.”

“Just for kicks,” he says, “if you didn’t know him at all, what would you have deduced from these mysterious essays?”

She shrugs. “That he used to be the kind of person who wants everyone they love to get along, that he’d have thrown himself over a cliff for either you or his sister but that _you_ weren’t out to take advantage of him at every turn, that he had imagination to sell at least ten professional writers and he’d have some left for himself and that until a certain point he _did_ try his best until he couldn’t anymore. Am I wrong?”

“No,” Tyrion says, “and I thought he stopped being like that when he dropped out of college. Then he ran into you and he’s apparently remembered he _can_ still be that person, so forgive me if I’m glad you decided to resort to sordid ways to lose your honesty.”

She laughs, unable to keep it in. “Yeah, well, I hadn’t remembered I once thought I’d have a chance in hell of not being miserable all the time until I knocked on his door, so it won’t be me regretting it.”

Tyrion looks about to say something else but then they hear steps going down the stairs and Jaime shows up in the hall not long later, still with her jacket on and with the notebook clenched in between the fingers of his left hand. His eyes are red, but his face is dry.

“You’re fucking _something_ , you know that?” He asks, sounding fond but also like someone who _has_ cried for ten minutes straight at least.

“It was all true,” she shrugs, standing up and moving closer. “And I think I want to punch this one in the face as much as the one from third grade.”

He lets out a half-laugh, leaving the notebook on the nearest table. “He's still not retired, but I think you’d kill him even if you kept yourself in check.”

“Well, he was an asshole. And you deserved better than that. By the way, all of those evaluations are honest, I wouldn’t have graded differently someone I didn’t already know.”

He nods, whispers _I know_ and then shakes his head again and throws his arms around her neck and she hugs him back — she doesn’t need to _say_ nothing, and he doesn’t either, but when Tyrion clears his throat and asks if he could read these mysterious essays, too, Jaime shrugs against her and says yes, and she hadn’t expected him to, but it’s just a good thing if he does. They move to sit in one of the booths and he puts his head on her shoulder as they do, resolutely not looking at his brother.

Brienne does, though, and the more he goes on the more horrified he looks, and by the time he closes the notebook he’s pale as a sheet.

Jaime sighs and straightens his back as Tyrion sits in front of them, the notebook in the middle of the table.

“Jesus H. Christ almighty,” he says, “why didn’t you ever _say_?”

Jaime shrugs. “Well, I thought the evaluations were clear. I didn’t want you to read that stuff and feel like you had to lie to me just to spare my feelings.”

“No, I don’t mean — fuck, okay, _that_ too, and by the way, she’s right, most of these are actually really good except when you don’t put effort in them and it’s obvious when you do, and we both know that whatever the hell is wrong with you it doesn’t mean it’s _laziness_ , but — that’s not what I meant.”

“Be more specific.”

“For — among _everything_ , this was from when you were fourteen. The — I broke that vase when you were _twelve_. You still — felt like _that_ two years later? You could have said.”

“Oh, _that_.” He shrugs, a bit too casually. “Sure, because I was going to tell you when you were _seven_. Please, what would it have accomplished? Making you feel even more guilty than you already did? And in between Cersei and _that_ , I figured that it was no point dumping it on you. I handled it.”

“Fuck’s sake,” Tyrion says, “I can’t — _please_ tell me that now you know you shouldn’t have _handled it_.”

“Guess I do,” he admits. “But really, it’s fine. It is.”

She can see in Tyrion’s eyes that he thinks it’s not, but then he obviously gives up on pushing it.

“Well, regardless of everything, these were good. If you ever write poetry again I want to read it.”

“Yeah, fuck you,” Jaime wheezes after considering the option for a moment, but he _is_ laughing, and fuck but she wishes he would do it _more_ , and she wishes she knew how to make it happen.

If only wishes were good enough.

— —

The morning after, she walks into work with three hours of sleep — never mind that they have to share the sofa if she stays over, but Jaime slept like shit and woke up screaming thrice, not that she can fault him for that, but it’s obvious that she hasn’t rested.

Mr. Harlaw looks at her with a knowing stare. But then he smiles at her.

What —

“Brienne, do you mind if we talk for one moment?” He asks.

He doesn’t sound like it’s because he wants to fire her, at least.

“Of course,” she says, closing the door behind her. It’s fifteen minutes until they open. “What about?”

“I think,” he says, “that I have a proposition for you.”

“… A proposition?” She asks, wondering what he’s fishing for. He motions for her to sit down behind the counter, they do have two chairs.

“See,” he says, “I don’t know if I ever told you, but I’m not the only person in the family in this business.”

“Wait,” she says, “didn’t you have a niece who worked for a publisher’s?”

“Indeed. Asha, my sister’s daughter,” he says, sounding pleased. “Well, she did up until now, sort of.”

“Up… until now?”

“Yes,” he nods. “They were stationed in Newark, but then they moved to New York and they managed to publish some kind of bestseller — it’s some romance trash that will be forgotten in a few years, but it sold _really_ well and the sequels did too, which means that she made a lot of money since she was the one telling them to publish it _and_ who edited it and supervised the entire process. Also, that asshole of my former brother in law actually thought she was the only one out of his kids worth a damn — or well, he _did_ after the first two landed in jail and we all know he decided Theon’s a lost cause, good thing that he listens to Robb Stark more than he listens to his father.” He stops, shakes his head and goes on. “ _Anyway_ , he actually ended up giving her a fair amount of money after the divorce because he _didn’t need it_ and whatever, and since she’s always wanted to open her own bookshop rather than edit shitty books… well, she might have caught her chance. She bought off this shop in the East Village that sold clothes when the owner retired and she’s turned it into what she wanted, but since she’s not quitting the publisher’s completely for now for obvious reasons… well, we were talking about it on the phone yesterday and she said she _could_ use someone else to work there when she’s not available. She can’t pay full time but it came with an apartment upstairs and she said that if I knew anyone who’d want that job, she could give them the guest room as long as they wanted. I mentioned that my current employee obviously can’t wait to flee from here, she asked if you were the daughter of the guy her mother’s dating, I said yes and she said she wants to talk to you.”

Brienne isn’t sure that she heard right.

“She… wants to talk to me?”

“Yeah,” he confirms. “She said that from what her mother tells her, her new _boyfriend_ is exactly everything she deserves and that she’d be more than happy to interview you, never mind that she’s always appreciated women who don’t fit stereotypes.” He’s openly grinning by now.

Brienne is sure her hands are shaking. It’s — it would be perfect, she thinks, the right chance laid out in front of her to take, and it would be _New York_ and it would mean endless chances and opportunities and, if she had a roof over her head, she could save enough even with a part time salary, and if she had been on her own she’d have said yes already without even thinking about it —

“So… I could talk to her?”

“Even now, if you want. I’d be sad to see you go, but it’s so _obvious_ that you hate it here, I couldn’t not recommend you just because you’re the only asshole other than Tyrion Lannister who _reads_ anything in here.”

She laughs. “Okay then. I — if I can.”

“Let me call her,” he says, dialing the number, waits for Asha to pick up, tells her that his employee is here and then he hands Brienne the phone and goes in the back office.

Brienne’s hands are sweating.

Good thing she’s on the phone.

“Asha Greyjoy,” a female voice says on the other side, pleasant but no-nonsense either. “I’m talking to Brienne Tarth, right?”

“Yes,” she says. “Pleased to meet you.”

“Oh, likewise,” Asha says. “I’ve only heard good things about you. Mind if I ask you a few questions?”

“Not at all,” Brienne says, and she answers all of them.

— —

By the time she closes the call, she’s grinning so hard it hurts.

“I suppose,” Mr. Harlaw says as he comes out of the office, “that she hired you?”

“Oh, she says I can start on Monday if I want to,” she says, almost crying for how _happy_ she is.

“Hm,” he says, “It’s Wednesday. Maybe I should just start interviewing for someone new if you have to get to New York before then?”

“Maybe,” she says. “Thank you, I don’t know how —”

“Brienne, _please_ , you were wasted here and we all knew it. Just go pack your things, won’t you?” Then he winks, and she knows she’s heard the latter part of their conversation.

Well then.

She thinks she _will_.

— —

She stops by the Starks first, to tell Sansa — she’s going back to school on Friday and Brienne’s sorry that they didn’t manage to spend more time together, but she is delighted to hear the news, says they’ll meet in New York more often then, and then says she wants to be at the diner because she _couldn’t_ miss what Brienne’s planning for the world.

( _Turns out, when Brienne told her, Sansa decided it was the most romantic thing she had ever heard. Brienne hadn’t questioned it. After all, she did break up with her boyfriend recently, and if she hasn’t lost her taste for romance, Brienne won’t be the one complaining about it._ )

Then she goes back home — she’s glad her father’s there for the entire week because she can take her time to tell him everything, and he hugs her as soon as she tells him the news, insists to give her some money for the trip even if she technically doesn’t need it, and she tells him that next time they all see each other he _has_ to bring Miss Harlaw along. He agrees with a smile and tells her to go pack already.

Brienne smiles to herself and heads upstairs — she doesn’t have _that many_ things, thankfully. She packs a couple of small suitcases full of clothes, takes care to bring her own blue dress, remembers for a moment that Jaime’s was gone in the fire and resolves to get a new one soon. She dumps the books she wants to bring with in a duffel bag and decides that she can bring the vinyls another time, puts together a backpack with a change of clothing, puts her savings box in it as well and loads everything in her car.

Half of the trunk is empty.

She’s still smiling to herself as she closes it. It’s ten minutes to midday, as in, when Tyrion’s diner is at its fullest capacity.

 _Good_.

Jaime might have spent months doing little things for her that felt like they were out of a dream, because she never thought she’d be in the kind of relationship where someone does for you small things all the time that show openly how much they care about you. She presumes she has given it back though not through _gestures_ or at least not as many, but that’s not the crux of it.

The crux of it is —

She thinks maybe it’s time she pays him back for real.

Just, maybe not with something _little_.

— —

When she walks inside the diner, it’s full.

She’s, for once, extremely glad to see Selyse Baratheon and her group of friends on one side, glaring at her. She smiles back, full teeth, and then checks the rest of the clientele. Aliser Thorne is there on his own, Lysa Tully is there with her son, Renly Baratheon and Loras Tyrell are pretending to not make eyes at each other, Sandor is on his own in a booth at the end of the room, Sansa is on her own in the one nearby giving her a thumbs-up, Randyll Tarly and a few others from his office are grumbling that they couldn’t go to the fancy Italian place today — _perfect_ , she thinks. Exactly the audience she wanted.

She holds her head high and goes to the bar, then clears her throat and then she loudly asks her question.

“Hey, can you ask your brother to come downstairs?”

Suddenly, the conversation dies down.

Tyrion raises an eyebrow. Everyone knows that Jaime is staying here, but no one is _acknowledging_ it. Also, half of the town probably guessed they have a thing if Selyse knew, but it’s not like they ever went public with it.

“I can,” he answers cautiously. “Any particular reason?”

“Oh, I have something to ask him,” she replies, still grinning.

“Well, sure,” he says, and raises the phone. “Jaime? Brienne is down here, she said you should come down. No, she says she’s not coming up and you really need to. No, I have no idea, but she has to _ask you something_.”

He closes the call. “He’s coming,” he says, putting away the plate he was cleaning.

“Thank you,” she says calmly, and waits.

Jaime shows up downstairs a minute later — he’s wearing her clothes, no surprise there. Her jeans, one of her old t-shirts, her father’s jacket, a pair of old boots she hasn’t worn in years that fit him well enough that his feet don’t hurt for it.

He’s also trimmed his hair a bit and his beard, too, and he looks a _lot_ better than he has for the entire past week. Good.

“Woah,” he says, “are you bringing good news?”

“I might be,” she answers, not keeping her voice down. Then she takes a step closer. “So, my boss has a niece.”

“… Asha Greyjoy? Yeah, I know. Haven’t seen here for years, good for her. What’s the matter?”

“She has just opened a bookshop in the East Village, she was looking for someone to help her out with the sales, he suggested me, we had a very nice chat on the phone and said I could start on Monday if I wanted,” she keeps on, feeling bad for one moment because she can see the split moment his face falls as he _obviously_ assumes that she’s leaving him here, but then he smiles back encouragingly in spite of what he’s just thought.

“Good for you,” he says, his voice getting slightly choked up, “you deserved it. So, you’re leaving —”

“Soon,” she says. “She said she could give me the guest room on the upper floor because she can’t pay me full salary yet, so I suppose I should leave and get acquainted with the premises. _But_ ,” she says, “I’m not finished.”

“… You’re not?”

“See,” she says, reaching out, putting a hand on his shoulder, still making sure her voice is high enough the entire diner can hear, “I told her that it was a dream come true and I would be more than happy to say yes… at one condition.”

“… At _one condition_?” He shakes his head. “What condition could you fucking possibly have for such a good deal?”

“That I was in a relationship and I wasn’t looking to break it off, and that I wasn’t the only one who wanted a ticket out of here.”

At _that_ , his eyes suddenly widen and she sees understanding downing in them.

“Brienne, you _haven’t_ —”

“I summed up the situation and she said that she knew already because apparently my boss is _that_ perceptive _and_ my father told her mother who told her, and her guest room has a queen-sized bed.”

“Brienne —”

“And that she absolutely has no problem having you there, too, and that there’s no way she can’t find you something to do around the place. Or that she wouldn’t find some friend of hers that could have something to do for you.”

His left hand clamps on her wrist, holding on so tightly it hurts.

“You’re saying —”

“I’m saying that there’s enough space in my trunk for your things, that we have a roof over our heads in New York for the foreseeable future and that while it _is_ what I was hoping for, it would be considerably more miserable and less worth it if you didn’t come with me. I — I can’t say it’s going to be perfect, but it’s a chance and I want to take it and I want you with me, okay?”

He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, and his eyes are wet and his hand is clamping on her wrist so hard she can barely feel it. The entire diner is silent, and she doesn’t have to move her eyes from him to know that everyone else is staring at them.

Let them.

“Are — are you sure?” He whispers a moment later. “I mean, it’s — it’s New York, if I remember the kind of people Asha hung out with you’d definitely meet others who actually _did_ go to college and wouldn’t bring with a fuckton of baggage. You could find better than me and you know it. I wouldn’t be angry, you know.”

She knew he’d say that. She _knew_ he would. She shakes her head, takes his face in both of her hands.

“No,” she says. “Or well, I don’t doubt I’ll meet many interesting people and I can’t wait to actually know someone I can talk to without feeling like they’re judging me every other moment, but I’m in love with _you_ , not with _other people_ , and I don’t _want_ someone better, whatever you even mean with that. And don’t tell me that you’re too old for turning the page over and I’m not, because it’s bullshit and you know it.” She takes a breath, taking in the way he’s looking at her, like he can’t believe a word of what she’s saying but he _wants to_ , he desperately wants to —

“So,” she goes on, still not moving her hands from his face. “My front seat’s free. My car’s actually out there, we can be out of here in the time it takes you to bring your things down. Now, the question is actually — pretty straightforward. I’m _done_ with this place full of losers and I’m pulling out of here to win. Are _you_?”

Someone gasps. Someone lets out some insult, someone snickers, someone asks if she’s just lost her mind. But it doesn’t matter because she can see it as it sinks into him that she’s _entirely_ serious, and a moment later he grins so brightly it makes him look ten years younger, his forehead touching hers —

“You know what,” he says, loud enough that others can hear it, “ _yes_.”

Her mouth is on his before she can even _think_ at that — he kisses her back without even blinking, his left hand grasping at her neck, his right touching her hip, both of her hands still on his face as their mouths crash against each other, and she’s pretty sure that Sansa is the only one clapping but she can’t give a fuck, not when they part for air and he still looks so happy he could burst with it.

“Okay,” she says, “just go upstairs and throw the boxes down, I’ll take them. Get your things and we’re gone.”

“Fuck, best news I ever heard,” he grins, and kisses her again for a moment before dashing back upstairs.

She thinks she’s not going to stop smiling anytime soon. She glances at the bottom of the room — Sansa looks like she’ll cry in happiness, Sandor is shaking his head but _fondly_ , and everyone else is glaring at her, but she can’t care less.

She looks at Tyrion. “Of course you’re welcome to visit anytime.”

“Yeah, I should hope,” he wheezes. “That was — I don’t even have words. Go get his stuff, how about it?”

She nods and heads out of the door, her head still held high. Her eyes meet Selyse’s as she reaches the door and man, doesn’t she look murderous.

“What,” Brienne says, “are you envious that I’m _not_ getting divorced?” She doesn’t know where the hell that came from but she _does_ enjoy it a bit when all of them suddenly make scandalized faces at once.

“Please,” Selyse replies, “as if anyone would be envious that you’re in — _whatever it is you are_ with him. Don’t you even have some self-respect?”

“I don’t know,” she grins back, “he’s a pretty good catch and he can kiss a girl properly. What, you wish you had _that_ experience?” She winks and gets out of the door as Selyse pretends to look scandalized and accuses her of insinuating bullshit or _whatever._

Who cares. She goes under the first floor’s window, and she’s not surprised that just after Jaime drops the first box into her hands and she goes to put it in the trunk, Sandor and Sansa both show up nearby.

“I take it back,” Sansa says, “ _that_ was the most romantic thing I’ve ever seen in my entire life.”

“And that was the most outlandish thing I’ve ever seen in mine,” Sandor comments, “but you know what, he probably had been secretly hoping someone would do that for him for years, so I won’t be here telling you it was a bad idea.”

“Well, thanks,” Brienne says, going back towards the window, catching the second box. “I was pretty satisfied with it.”

Fuck, she can’t _wait_. No more Lannister drama, no more judging looks, no more need to hide, they can figure things out someplace _ideal_ , and maybe if they both are careful with money they could find their own place in a few months.

She puts the box in the car while Sandor gets the third and wordlessly hands it over — Jaime says he’ll pack the clothes and talk to Tyrion and then he’ll be downstairs, and she tells him to take his time and she _can’t fucking stop smiling_.

“Jesus,” Sansa says, “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you _this_ happy since we’ve known each other. It’s a good look on you, you know.”

“Well, I have all the reasons to,” she answers.

“For that matter _he_ hasn’t ever looked happy in six years that I’ve known him,” Sandor mutters, “so I guess you deserve each other.”

Sansa looks about to ask him for clarification as Brienne slams the trunk closed. The backseat is almost empty — good, they have space.

Sansa opens her mouth.

And then —

“What is _this_?”

She never gets to ask her question because Cersei Lannister has just walked up to Brienne’s car, and for a moment Brienne wants to curse out loud, then she remembers that while her father’s offices are in their mansion which in turn is in the middle of another field on the way to Jersey City, _hers_ is actually in town nearby. Not that it deals with anything but PR, but if someone called her to warn about her little show-off it’d have taken her a minute to get here.

She’s wearing a green dress that compliments her eyes perfectly, her hair is perfectly styled, her lips are ruby-red with the same lipstick, she’s standing perfectly on five-inch heels that Brienne could never wear without risking a very poor figure, not counting that no one produces heels in her foot size anyway. Years ago, she’d have felt jealous, maybe. At least of her looks. Now she’s relieved to realize that she really, really _doesn’t_.

She shrugs, trying to keep herself in check. She thought that with all the good news she got today and after yesterday, she had exhausted most of her reasons to be angry, but now that she looks at her she feels it come up again, unbidden, but she tries to keep it down.

“I’m leaving town,” she says, flatly. “And your brother’s coming with.”

Cersei keeps on staring at her as if she’s not processing the information. “He’s _coming with you_.”

“Yeah. Why, two people in a relationship can’t go live together now?”

“So it _was_ you,” she says, still sounding like she can’t believe it.

Brienne shrugs. “I imagine _you_ couldn’t conceive it. Well, neither could I, but I can now, and believe me, it was the best thing that happened to me. So, are you here to show some decency and wish him good luck or _something_ or what? Because if it’s any other reason, you can fuck off.”

“ _The best thing that happened to you_. Well, I can buy that. Couldn’t believe that someone with his looks would want to even look at you?”

It’s so weak, Brienne can’t even get angry at it. She just stares at Cersei as if she finds her a waste of time and says nothing.

“Or maybe you still haven’t realized that he’s so desperate he’d take anything or anyone who’d look his way?”

 _That_ irks her a lot more.

“Fuck’s sake, shut up,” Brienne says, moving closer, and she can see the moment Cersei realizes that not only she’s not impressed, but it’s _not working_. “We’ve been together for months and actually _talked_. None of us is _desperate_. None of us is settling and if you’re assuming I’ll get doubts because of anything you say, can it and just be glad that none of us is going to press charges against your father for the fire — we know we couldn’t afford a decent lawyer so no point, but he knows and I know and other people do, so just — shut it.”

“And you think you two have a chance in hell of actually working it out? _Please_. He was impossible to deal with when he was fifteen, imagine _now_.”

“I don’t know,” Brienne says, “I don’t assume people will do what I want all the time. Are you done?”

“Hey, sorry, it took me — ah, _shit_ ,” Jaime says from behind her, coming in from the diner’s door. “The hell are you even doing here?”

“Tarly called me,” Cersei says, as if it’s nowhere near the point. “And what the _fuck_ are you doing?”

“What you and Father have wanted for years, right? I’m fucking leaving. Hey, you won. I don’t have a house, I don’t have a business, I _can’t_ do that job anymore, what more do you want?”

“No one said —”

“Cersei, he paid some known thugs to set my house on fire and regardless of what he said, I _could_ still have been inside and they could have assumed I wasn’t and burn it regardless. Please. I’m done with all of you. I spent years running myself to the ground for you and you have no right to ask for anything else. You got what you wanted, now let me fucking leave.”

He stares at her for a moment and then throws his backpack into the car, not looking back at her. And — the more Brienne stares at her, the more she realizes that she can’t handle that neither of them is actually giving her the importance she feels she should get.

For a moment she feels sad — from what she gathered, Cersei has spent her life trying to make her father give a damn about her and to recognize her as his heir and not just seeing her as someone he could marry off for getting better business deals, and she _can_ relate to that, but then she can’t hold that feeling for much longer because all in all she has the money, she has the looks, she married the guy she wanted regardless of how happy or unhappy their marriage is, and she _could_ have done something for herself or others from the position she’s at, and she _hasn’t_ and she’s just made both of her brothers’ life a complete mess in the best of cases, and he thinks of what Jaime had told her that first night, that he _didn’t remember half of the things they did_ —

“I think we’re done,” Brienne says. “Now, either you leave or I’m making you, and I entirely mean it. Will you? Because I’m losing patience here.”

“And what,” Cersei laughs, “would you do then? Beat me up? If you want to leave here —”

“No,” Brienne interrupts her, “but what will you do, put yourself in front of my car for the entire next week? I _could_ do that, and I’m fed up enough that I _would_ if you pushed somewhat more, so how about you don’t?

Thing is — she’s serious. She’s uttermost serious, and Cersei most likely sees it because she sends a last glare to the both of them and turns away —

And then crashes to the ground because Sandor _definitely_ put his foot in the way of her ankle. She’s not too happy as she stands up finding that her dress is dirty, one of her knees is bloody and one of her heels broke down, but when she tries to protest Sandor utterly denies having done that and Sansa denies having seen anything, and then she turns her back on all of them again and leaves muttering curses.

Well.

“Thanks,” she tells Sandor.

“I didn’t do shit,” he grins back, and Jaime is bent in two laughing, so she figures it’s gone as well as it could have.

She hugs first Sansa and then Sandor, after which Jaime and Sandor shake hands and say something in between the two of them that she can’t hear, then she gets in the driver’s seat as Jaime tells Sansa something, then Jaime finally climbs in the passenger’s seat. She puts the car into gear, turning it towards the I-78.

“So,” she says, “do we pull out of this shithole to win?”

“Hell, _yes,_ ” he smiles, brighter than she’s ever seen him smile, and his hand finds hers as she pushes on the right pedal.

She drives out of town holding it back, heading towards the sun slowly making its way across the sky, and then she rolls down both windows and his hair is blowing in the wind and so is hers, and never mind that she has no idea of what their future has in store for them.

It’s good enough that they _made_ it happen, and so she speeds forward.

TBC

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AAAAAND THEY LEFT. ;) sorry it took this long but stay tuned for the payoff. u_u


	8. and I believe in a promised land

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> in which they make a new life for themselves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ... HI. I SAID A COUPLE OF DAYS. IN MY DEFENSE the entire epilogue is longer than idek the first three parts put together. I WANTED TO DO THE SHORT-ISH EPILOGUE THIS RAN AWAY FROM ME. K THEN.
> 
> Welcome to the officially longest single fic I've ever written for this damned fandom. HAVE FUN I THINK THEY DESERVED IT.
> 
> Also: please heed the new tags. There was a thing I realized I could do and I couldn't resist which meant needing the recreational drug use tag, so if you have issues with people smoking weed or having sex while they're smoking weed just skip august 1969 take two, otherwise you're good. Sorry not sorry I really Could Not Resist. endless thanks to totemundtabu again for the beta service <333
> 
> Minor thing which is why I hate WIPs: last chapter I pegged Jaime's teacher in eight grade as a she figuring I wouldn't need to make names, then I had an idea for this and I realized that there was a male character way more appropriate, therefore I changed pronouns in the previous chapter. Apologies just pretend it was a dude all along. XD
> 
> Also: I might post a playlist to go with this at some point when I'm home/with proper internet but for maximum satisfaction pls listen to any springsteen you have at your disposal. u__u
> 
> Other than that I'll just... leave this here. HAVE THE CONCLUSION. THEY EARNED IT AND I HOPE IT'S TO Y'ALL'S SATISFACTION. (and so did I tbh.) *saunters vaguely downwards*

**May 1968**

Whatever Brienne’s expectations had been when it came to their lodgings, what they eventually get when Asha Greyjoy welcomes them to her place and shows them upstairs far surpasses them. Her guest room is as large as Jaime’s old one had been and the bed is indeed large enough for the both of them, the apartment has three more rooms, a kitchen and two bathrooms — _it was a bargain_ , Asha says —, and the shop downstairs is thrice the size of her uncle’s. She still hasn’t opened properly and half of the shelves are empty, but when Brienne says that they could help out with _that_ even before Monday, Asha shakes her head, says that she’s not a damned leech and that opening is scheduled in ten days anyway, so they’ll have the entirety of the next week to fix things and they should just rest and take a look around for now.

“Also,” she says, grinning in a way that reminds Brienne of her brother’s quite a lot, “full disclosure, I have people over all the time and my room is in front of yours. I’m not keeping it down for your sakes, but you can totally be as loud as you’d like. No one’s a puritan here.” Then she winks at them and closes the door after informing them that she’s also shit at cooking, so if any of them wants to help out with _that_ , she’s only glad to accept.

“Sure as hell city life did her good,” Jaime says after she’s gone for a bit and they’re unpacking at least their clothing.

“Who says it won’t do _us_ any good?” She asks back, unable to keep the giddiness from her tone. They’re on the third floor, which means that they don’t have mere street view, and the sky looks impossibly azure and maybe the air doesn’t smell clean but it sure as fuck smells _better_ than home.

“Oh, I can’t wait for _that_ ,” Jaime retorts, putting the last of her shirts in the closet. “Also, maybe I really need to get some clothing that’s not yours.”

“Well, nothing prevents us from going out and buying some,” she says. “Also, I think I owe you a new dress.”

His grin suddenly gets sharper. “Oh, _right_. Well, won’t be me refusing you.”

“I think we have nothing to do now, don’t we?”

She grabs Asha’s keys from the nightstand and they go downstairs after Asha assures them that it’s full of shops nearby that might sell clothing without it being extra pricey, and indeed they do find a few — she jokes that _she_ never went on such a shopping spree her entire life, he grins back and tells her that vanity is a family trait and it’s all used stuff anyway, so it’s not like he’s getting out of budget, and also he has to redo his entire damned wardrobe, which she supposes is fair. The fact that she wants to take off him each single piece of clothing he tries on doesn’t help, but by the time they’re out of the third shop he has enough things to actually rebuild a basic wardrobe. He suggests heading home to drop it off and then take another stroll around the area, and she agrees —

Except that they pass in front of another second-hand clothes shop that sports _nice_ dresses in the window.

He grins and says he’ll wait outside, she _does_ know his measures.

She recycles the excuse of needing to buy one for her sister and she comes out of the store with a turquoise gown in the same style of the first one, just with more frills on the skirt and with short sleeves rather than long ones. They do leave everything in the bags before spending the rest of the afternoon out and taking a look at least at the surroundings.

“Well,” he says, his fingers entwined with hers, “last time I was here I think I was fifteen and it was on a school trip. I think we only went to see Wall Street.”

“Seriously? Not even a museum?”

“Please, art was a waste of time unless you wanted to trade in it, where I come from.”

“If it consoles you, I don’t think I’ve ever been anywhere larger than Atlantic City.”

“Too bad. Should we do tourism in the next few days?”

“You know what, we _should_ ,” she smiles back, and she’s delighted that they’ve been walking around for half an hour and no one has glanced at them twice. They couldn’t have done this a month ago, not so openly.

Back upstairs, after they leave dinner cooked for Asha who is apparently out with friends or so the note she left says, Jaime shoos her out of the room and doesn’t let her in until he has tried on the dress.

It fits perfectly.

Brienne takes great delight in _not_ taking it off him.

— —

In the next few days, they do make a list and just — take their time and see the city, go through Times Square, Brooklyn Bridge, the Empire State Building, the Statue of Liberty, Central Park, the Radio City Music Hall. Then they fall into bed and sometimes they just fall asleep and some others they don’t, but he doesn’t wake up every other hour and it only makes her even surer of ditching everything and coming here.

On Saturday, Asha shows up with two other guys and locks the three of them inside her bedroom.

“Shit,” Jaime says twenty minutes after the dance has started on her side of the door, “she _wasn’t_ lying when she said she wouldn’t care for the noise.”

“She never said we couldn’t do the same, though,” Brienne grins back at him, and the next morning Asha happily congratulates her on how she wore him out.

Jaime doesn’t blink before saying he enjoyed it _fully_.

“You absolutely beat my former roommates,” Asha declares as she digs into her breakfast.

Brienne supposes that for a start, it’s not bad _at all_.

— —

They spend the entire following week unpacking boxes and getting the shelves ready — Asha is at the publisher’s most of the time, but it’s not complicated work and while she forbids Jaime to use the right hand to lift piles of books or anything of the kind, he can still make himself useful, and they have the entire shipment unloaded and fixed by Friday. Asha is impressed and tells her that she’s really glad her uncle didn’t see fit to keep her in his shop when she’s that good, and offers to buy them drinks.

They go to this bar in Hell’s Kitchen she’s apparently very well-known in.

“Uh,” Jaime says half into their second round, and she _had_ noticed that he had looked sort of rigid before. “I was wondering, now that she’s starting… I mean, I don’t want to slouch around or anything. If you know someone who needs people with pretty much no experience in _anything_ —”

“Slow down,” Asha says, knocking half of her whiskey in one go. Brienne is impressed. “I do know a lot of people who could hire someone, but you’re going around with a healing third-degree burn and jobs that require no previous experience usually also require using both your hands. Which was a situation I knew already when I said you could stay in my guest room, so for now you can just help her out in the bookshop and when you can use that hand fully if you haven’t found anything in the meantime I can ask around. Seriously, don’t sweat it. You _can_ take some time to figure your shit out.”

He opens his mouth, then closes it. “Right,” he says, “your funeral if I drive away clients when they ask me recommendations.”

Asha rolls her eyes to the ceiling and orders a third round.

Brienne thinks that she’s looking very, very much forward to the next few months.

**June 1968**

“The good news is that you’re doing good for now. The bad news is that _no_ , you shouldn’t absolutely use it to lift things or do heavy labor for another couple of months or you might still cause it some serious damage.”

“Thanks,” Jaime says, trying not to voice is frustration — he’s lucky enough that Asha’s friend Sarella, who is a training medical student, agreed to keep an eye on his hand for free, he can’t exactly tell her that, as much as his current living situation is more than he could ever hope for a year ago, he _really_ hates not being able to function full time. “So, see you in a month?”

“Sure,” she says. “Just remember to put the usual cream on it and keep it wrapped, maybe _then_ if it goes on like this we can see to take the bandages off. Take it easy and don’t be an idiot.”

“I’ll try. Have a nice month then,” he smiles at her, half-meaning it, and leaves the booth they had been sharing in the bar where they usually meet.

He sighs, flexing his fingers a bit. He _has_ regained some motion, though not fully, and he sure as hell couldn’t write with it properly yet, if he’s ever going to manage, but — could be worse, he supposes. He heads back to the bookshop, relishing the warmth of the sun on his face as he walks, and as much as he hates that he can’t do anything more than helping Brienne out with menial things, cook dinner and do his shift when needing to clean the apartment, it’s still… fuck, he can’t imagine the alternative. The perspective of waiting tables for his brother when most of Jaime’s former clientele goes to his diner makes his stomach turn, and so he stops considering it as he makes his way.

He’s there in fifteen minutes, and it’s empty, but then again it’s two in the afternoon, no one usually comes in at this time. Brienne is behind the counter checking some pieces of paper, probably the shipments.

“Hey,” she says, grinning at him, and fuck but it makes his heart soar like it was the first day after they kissed. “How did it go?”

“You’re still not getting rid of me,” he says, “but apparently it’s healing. Did anything happen in the two hours I was gone?”

“Let me think,” she says, “I sold a few university textbooks and I got two calls. Sansa says she’ll drop here on her way back home after her last final, which was a few days ago, so she should show up soon. Also, my father says that he’s coming up with his girlfriend and he absolutely wants all four of us to have dinner out, so be ready for it in… two days.”

“I survived the first time, I think I can survive this one,” he says, moving behind the counter with her and moving an arm around her waist.

“Hey, we’re on shift —”

“ _You_ are on shift,” he corrects her, kissing her briefly before she laughs and tells him to go put in place the misplaced books from the morning — the shop has a couple of tables with sofas and plush chairs around them surrounded with shelves both sides because Asha thought it would be good for people to sit down and check books out, so people just drop them there all the time if they can’t be bothered to put them back in place. He can definitely do _that —_ as bad as his reading is, putting authors in fucking alphabetical order when the covers are written in caps isn’t undoable.

He’s just done putting back the ones on the first table when the bell on the door rings and in comes this woman with a girl that can’t be older than eight holding on to her hand.

Except that the moment she reaches Brienne and starts asking her information about what sounds like a _long_ list of books she should get or order, she lets the kid’s hand go and the moment she calls for her, the mother brushes her off and says that she’s busy and can’t go and pay attention to her _now_ and can’t she be good for ten minutes?

The girl’s face falls and she starts desolately aiming across the shop.

Now, he shouldn’t really do anything about it. First, he doesn’t _work_ here, technically, he just… lounges around with Asha’s blessing, but it’s not like he’s an official employee or anything of the kind. Second, people don’t usually take too well to strangers talking to their kids.

But —

He remembers even too well the times his own father did the same thing with all three of them, in various situations, and the girl looks like she’s about to cry and actually at some point she sniffs loudly and her mother doesn’t even take notice. Brienne stops talking for a moment but she’s on the clock and she can’t go and tell a customer that she’s being an ass now, can she, and —

Ah, _whatever_ , at most he’ll apologize later.

“Hey,” he tells the kid, dropping down to one knee so he’s at her height — not that he’s talked to any children in the last ten years, but he was the designated person to handle them in family reunions and he was always _good_ at it, and while he hasn’t thought about having any for obvious reasons

( _even if he_ might _have imagined it in his weakest moments in the last six months, when he couldn’t think about what was happening in the clients’ room and preferred to picture various scenarios in which he and Brienne could actually have a very nice life_ )

at least in his head he _shouldn’t_ do too bad. “I see you’re getting bored, aren’t you?”

She glances at him with somewhat distrustful eyes, but then she looks at her mother, who is ignoring her all over again, and she shrugs, not saying no.

“Maybe,” she admits. “But I shouldn’t bother you.”

He raises an eyebrow. “You aren’t,” he says. “I asked you first, didn’t I?”

She shrugs again, then her voice drops. “Mom says that if people are doing their jobs I shouldn’t be a bother, so.”

Jaime looks at her neatly braided brown hair and chestnut eyes and summer dress with a seashell print on it — it’s spotless clean and ironed, not a single stain on it. He’s really glad that _Brienne_ is dealing with her mother and not him.

“Well, I work here and I should answers customers’ questions and so on,” he says, “and as far as I can see you’re a customer and you’re being very bored, so you’re not distracting me or anything. We do have a children’s section, you know.”

“Do you?” She asks, suddenly perking up. “Mom didn’t say I could get anything —”

“That’s fine,” he says, “I’ll take the blame. Also, who says you have to _get_ anything? You can just grab something to pass the time.”

She perks up at that, and then introduces herself as Jeyne, and she seems very delighted to hear they have similar names — he shows her to the kids’ section, it’s an entire corner with three full walls dedicated to the genre, but there are no chairs there. Maybe they should rectify it, but from what he’s seen most people who buy from that section around here are adults getting presents for their children or nephews, so he supposes it makes sense. Anyway, Jeyne doesn’t seem to mind and when looking at the titles Brienne put on display she proclaims she wants to check out _Charlie and the Chocolate Factory_ — he gets her a copy, which she takes gladly.

Then —

“Do you know what it’s about?” She asks.

Well, _shit_. Jaime has no idea beyond what the title suggests, because while he has shelved half of the stuff in the place he hasn’t exactly checked out the plots, and he can’t try to read the back of another copy now to save face.

“No,” he says, “I haven’t been here very long so I haven’t checked them all. But hey, you can give it a read and tell me.”

 _Thankfully_ , she doesn’t ask him if he wouldn’t be faster checking it out himself. She grins and says sure and proceeds to read the back of it fairly quickly — he compliments her on it.

“Thanks,” she says, blushing. “I’m the fastest in the house, actually, but my brothers don’t really care for it.”

 _And I bet your mother doesn’t either,_ he doesn’t say. “Then why don’t you show me?”

“But don’t you have anything better to do?”

“You’re a customer,” he winks at her, “and I’d be very bad at my job if I didn’t listen to you now, wouldn’t I?”

She grins and nods and starts reading out loud, though not enough that anyone might be disturbed. She _is_ fast, Jaime can’t help noticing — not as Tyrion was at her age, but surely more than _he_ is now. And whatever her mom had to do, it takes her long enough that Jeyne is somewhere around the middle of chapter three when they hear her mother clear her throat and she immediately stops.

“Jeyne,” she says, “how many times did I tell you —”

“Please,” he interrupts her, flashing her the smile he used to flash Lysa Tully, Selyse Baratheon and the likes back in another life that he really hopes he has left behind for good, “I was the one asking her. I was getting bored of shelving books anyway.”

“Well, thanks for keeping her,” her mom says, neutrally. “Come on, put that back and we can go.”

She has two bags full of books, Jaime notices. At least _that_. Jeyne’s face falls at the prospect of not getting hers, though.

Brienne clears her throat. “Ma’am, you know what,” she says, “considering that you got so many other books, I think we can actually gift that to her, it would be no problem at all.”

Jeyne immediately beams, her expression changing completely. Her mom doesn’t seem too convinced. “Are you sure?” She asks. “Not that I’ll say no to free books, but if she was bothering him —”

“Not at all,” Jaime presses, and then Jeyne’s mom shrugs and says fine, lets Brienne ring the purchase and leaves without paying for it. Jeyne waves at him very happily as she walks out of the store, the book clutched under her arm. Brienne takes out her wallet and slides a five into the cash register, but she’s smiling as she does.

“Well,” Jaime mutters, moving to the counter, “now _that_ was a proper ass.”

“She was,” Brienne nods. “Her daughter wasn’t, though.”

He nods in assent, not saying anything. The entire show left a bad, bad taste in his throat.

“Hey,” Brienne says, a hand moving to her arm, “she _was_ an asshole and that kid deserved better and you absolutely should have distracted her. You were good with her.”

She doesn’t say it like she’s surprised. He shrugs again. “I sort of always was, around kids. I mean, not that it was ever useful to anything or anyone except my brother, but — I mean, it’s not like I’ve talked to that many, lately.”

She squeezes his arm. “I get it,” she says, and now she looks like she’s _thinking_ something.

“The hell do you have on your mind now?” He asks.

“Oh, I’ll let you know in a bit. I need to think on it.”

“Fair, fair. I’ll start thinking about how to approach the infamous double date,” he says, and she laughs against his mouth before stealing another kiss and going back to work.

Maybe things aren’t _totally_ ideal, but —

But he thinks he likes the direction they’re heading in.

— —

Two days later, he’s sitting in front of Alannys Harlaw at a nice Chinese restaurant not too far from Asha’s place.

He had never really _met_ her before, but he decided he liked her the moment she showed no reticence with shaking his hand _and_ sitting in front of him, which a _lot_ of people have done since, well, _since_. She looks a lot like her daughter, except that you can only see the black of Asha’s hair in a few strands surrounded with gray, but they have the same large dark eyes and the same mouth and she also looks radiant when she glances at Brienne’s father. Also, from what he remembers, she used to go around town modestly dressed and with her hair always in an unflattering bun — now she has her hair down and she’s wearing a nice white dress that has frills on the skirt and on the short sleeves without being excessive, and she definitely looks happier than he has ever seen her from afar.

They all make small talk except for exchanging gossip about what’s going on back home — apparently Selyse’s divorce is being ugly, Stannis is still making eyes at Davos, Sandor Clegane is occasionally working for Tyrion but he _did_ know that already —, until Brienne and her father start a minor argument about the bill and they agree on spitting half and half. They also agree on getting dessert somewhere else and they say they’ll go pay and that the two of them can just sit and finish their drinks.

Jaime doesn’t even try to say he could get the tip, he’s pretty sure both of them would forbid him, so he doesn’t and glances fondly at Brienne’s back as she follows her father to the cash register.

“Can I tell you something in all frankness?” Miss Harlaw asks him a moment later.

“Uh, sure,” he says, immediately wondering if he said anything idiotic in the previous hour —

“I thought I got lucky with _him_ ,” she says, nodding towards Brienne’s father, “but now I’m starting to wonder if maybe that entire family is generally good news.”

He _has_ to laugh at that, because she’s really not wrong.

( _He thinks again of that card her father sent him after the fire, that he still keeps inside his copy of_ The Catcher in the Rye _, which might have been just a couple of lines, but the moment he read_ it’s disgusting that anyone would try to do such a thing to you and I can imagine you’re not well right now but I’ve seen enough of you to know it won’t be what kills you so please try to get better _,_ _he really had to put an effort into not doing something exceedingly embarrassing in front of Brienne, and so what if he had thought that it really said it all that most likely his own father was behind the fire and_ Brienne’s _had to send him the get well wishes?_ )

“You know what,” he says, “maybe you have a point or ten. But what prompts you to say _that_?”

“I _did_ see you around town, you know. Never considered buying your services, also because my then-husband would have murdered the both of us in cold blood if he ever found out, but you look five years younger than you actually are now _and_ back in the day you looked five years older at any given point.”

… Yeah, well. “That’s… an accurate assessment, most likely,” he admits. “Honestly, Brienne deciding she _did_ need my services was probably the best thing that happened to me, but I don’t know if she got that.”

“I can’t disagree when it comes to her father, so — maybe we should have a toast to our common luck?”

“Gladly,” he says as he clinks his Chinese beer bottle against her Coke. When both Brienne and her father come back they don’t seem to grasp why the two of them are _still_ chuckling, but that’s fine. Some things, he can keep for himself.

He will make sure she gets it, one day.

He _will_.

— —

The next Sunday, he wakes up to find the bed empty but still warm. He drags himself out of it just to find both Brienne and Asha sitting at the kitchen’s table staring at him like hawks.

“Uhm,” he asks, “something wrong?”

“No,” Asha says, “but your girlfriend has an exceedingly good idea that we should run by you, because it would solve partially your current employment situation, would gain me extra money and would kickstart business even more. Too bad you two are exclusive because I _did_ kind of want to french her when she told me.”

Brienne goes red in the face behind her coffee cup.

“Well, if she’s in agreement, it’s not like I’ve never done threesomes,” he shrugs, and he smirks at Brienne’s outraged face while Asha bursts out laughing again.

“Right, never mind,” Asha wheezes when she has calmed down, “let’s run it. Now, she informed me that you’re actually pretty damn good around kids or so it seems.”

“… I am, I guess,” he says, “but how —”

“I thought,” Brienne starts, “that — right, let’s just go at it from the beginning. I mean, not many people come for children’s books but I suppose it’s normal, this isn’t exactly a kid friendly area and schools are closed now. But if we made that side of the shop a bit nicer, with a few good chairs and a couch and so on, maybe we could… do a thing where each day people can come and leave their kids there for a couple of hours in the morning or the afternoon, whenever it’s more convenient, and pay a nominal fee for it, or maybe if we do it for a full month they pay it for the full month and not per day, depends on how we want to spin it. And _you_ could handle them.”

He’s _really_ glad he didn’t have a cup in his hands or he’d have let it fall to the ground.

Suddenly he’s not feeling like joking about it.

“ _I_ could?”

“Yeah,” she says, “and since it’d be your thing, you could keep the money from the fees. The shop would get more sales anyway because let’s say you keep ten of them, at least a couple would walk away having bought a book or two in the worst case. So _she_ gets more money, you can do something more…. rewarding than standing around and shelving and the parents would get to know the shop or buy books there, too.”

It’s — damn brilliant, he decides. But more than that —

“I — yeah,” he says, “I’d love it.” No point in lying. He _would._ “But, uh, what if someone finds out —”

“Please,” Asha interrupts him. “This isn’t the shithole we come from. As long as we don’t advertise your surname, no one will know who you are and even if they did they wouldn’t go look into what you’ve done for the last ten years or however long it was. And as far as I’m concerned your previous line of work doesn’t mean shit, so if you’re down with it I can work over the details now and we can start advertising from tomorrow, time is fucking money after all.”

“Then — okay. Sure,” he says, finally sitting down and drinking his coffee. When Brienne reaches under the table and takes his left hand, he immediately squeezes back.

For a moment, he feels utterly terrified at the prospect —

But it would be money, he would stop feeling useless, and he thinks of how that girl’s eyes lightened up as she read, and —

And maybe it’s time he stops assuming he _can’t_ do something he would be good at, for once.

**August 1968, take one**

On the morning of August 17th, Brienne slips out of bed around seven AM — Jaime is dead to the world but considering that they fell asleep ridiculously early after a day of fire at the shop yesterday, it’s nothing she hadn’t expected. They’re supposed to be down at ten and especially he can’t be late since her idea had worked so well that they’re doing the whole _keeping kids entertained at the shop_ thing twice now, morning and afternoon, until September starts, and so he has to be there on time.

Still, it’s three hours and he won’t hate her if she wakes him up half an hour from now, if everything goes as planned. She smiles to herself as she goes into the kitchen, grabs what she needs from the fridge and spends the next twenty minutes producing a quantity of pancakes that would feed them for three days, leaves some on the side for Asha and then puts a sizable stack on one plate and a smaller one on another, pours maple syrup and fruit generously on both, sprays whipped cream on the side in both plates, puts them both on a tray and goes back inside their room.

She clears her throat. _Very_ loudly.

He groans, opening his eyes slowly, noticing the time on the alarm clock on his side.

“The hell —” He starts.

“Happy birthday,” she says, moving the tray on the bed, and it’s probably damn sad that he looks surprised that she remembered it, but she decides to not dwell on that.

Next year, she’ll make sure he _won’t_.

“What — good grief, I get breakfast in bed now?”

“When else should you get it?” She climbs back into bed, grabbing the plate with the lower stack. “Come on, no one’s going to kill you for indulging in sweet stuff.”

“Good thing I don’t need to watch it anymore,” he says under his breath, and then he snatches the other plate and starts going through it, and so what if she _really_ likes that whenever he eats her damned pancakes he looks like he’s thoroughly enjoying it? It’s a good look on him. She’d like to keep it there.

“Shit,” he says in between bites, “you know that you ruined any other pancake joint for me, don’t you?”

“Good,” she replies, “but you just have to ask if you want them.”

He nods at her and then goes back to the pancakes again, and he’s finished in the time it takes her to be done with hers. “There’s more in the kitchen,” she says, “but I had a plan.”

“I’m all ears.”

“I think I should send you to work with _nice_ things on your mind,” she says, moving the empty plates on the tray and putting it on her nightstand. “Then you can think about what you’d like for me to do after we’re off and I can arrange it.”

At _that_ , he grins wider. “Oh, really. _Anything_ I want?”

“Sure,” she says. “If it’s within my means. Now, though —”

She pushes him downwards and spends the next hour holding him down to the bed and stretching it out to the point that when she finally lets him come, he’s pretty much begging for it. By the time they’re done, they’re both breathing like they ran a damned marathon and he mutters something about hoping he’s not getting too old for it. She smacks the pillow in his face and tells him to _think about it_.

He says he will.

— —

At lunch break, he comes over to the counter, moves closer to her and whispers in her ear.

“Would that be doable?” He asks, barely audible.

“Of course it would,” she answers, not telling him that he just made her heart grow three sizes at the request. She’s pretty sure they’re both off the clock in time to do what he asked and when she asks Asha she says that they can be out of there when he’s done with looking after the kids at four PM as far as she’s concerned.

She goes back to work smiling to herself and if she thinks that he does look happier than she’s ever seen him outside the time he said yes when she asked him to get the hell out of Dodge with her, well, _good_. She just hopes it becomes a more common happenstance in the future.

**August 1968, take two**

The Natural History museum is _fucking huge_ and Jaime thinks he loves it — and fine, he asked her to come here because it was in _Catcher in the Rye_ and on top of that today it closes later than usual which means they actually have time to see most of it, but he’s not really regretting his choices.

“Shit,” he says after they leave the Hayden Planetarium and start looking for the natural history halls, “why didn’t I ever care for science in school?”

“Because none of your teachers seemed interested in whether you _cared_ for their subject which automatically means they’ll make it less interesting?”

That’s an exceedingly good point and he agrees with it as they go forward, and he thinks that maybe he’d like to come back again because there’s no way they can see everything properly _now_ , but then they pass in front of the infamous Eskimo catching the two fish that was described in that book and he kind of wishes they had a camera so he could take a picture or _something_ and fuck, since when he was this excited about a damned museum?

He doesn’t know, but he thinks he likes the feeling. Maybe they should go see the other important ones, which to their shame they haven’t until now, but after that first week there hasn’t been much time for tourism. Brienne tells him it won’t be _her_ discouraging him from it as long as they don’t wait for _her_ birthday for the next one — he grabs her hand as they go look for the deer, he’s going to find each damned single thing described in _Catcher in the Rye_ before they’re out of time, and by the time they do and the museum’s doors have closed, it’s sunset and the air is warm and not in the oppressive way it used to be at home.

“You know,” he says, “last year at this time I think I was contemplating getting wasted and then couldn’t because I had _appointments_. Then Tyrion showed up at midnight with whiskey and that was it.”

“That’s sad, but then again the year before this one I think I watched a re-run of _It’s a Wonderful Life_ on tv. That was it.”

“Christ, at least you were sober…?”

“Didn’t stop me from crying at the end. As usual. Don’t judge me.”

“Please, after that time with _Stagecoach_ it won’t be me doing any kind of judging.” He shakes his head, says yes when she asks him if he feels like walking to Coney Island or as far as they can get without collapsing. Neither of them does and she buys the both of them some ice cream, and damn but doesn’t it feel nice to _not_ having to worry about sugar intake as much as he used to.

By the time they fall into bed it’s well past midnight but he doesn’t feel tired and neither does she and maybe he could have asked for sex, but he’s grasping that he can do that whenever he wants lately, and so instead he lets her kiss him into the mattress and nothing else until they both pass out, and he doesn’t tell her that he can’t remember the last time he actually _did_ celebrate and enjoyed it.

He’s more interested in looking forward to next year’s.

**September 1968**

“Can I give you a bit of advice?” Asha asks Brienne as they both stand behind the cash register — it’s relatively quiet because with the schools starting their children’s book club has shrunk to a few of them coming in the afternoons with the usual rich but neglectful parents, so Jaime is only entertaining Jeyne Westerling (she has come back a _lot_ of times) and a couple other ones in the usual place, but they not being noisy.

“Sure,” Brienne tells her as she puts away the sales sheet.

“I didn’t tell you last year because it was too late to apply anyway, but — honestly, as much as I’d hate to lose you, you’re wasted here.”

“ _What_?”

“Please,” she goes on, “I know what my uncle meant now. I mean, you’ve been here four full months and you’ve organized four extra activities in here that have greatly helped me profit, we haven’t had _one_ single return when it came to books _you_ recommended to people, you’re good with numbers and if that idea you had about having high schoolers over in the afternoon for extra history lessons or whatever works out things are going to be even _better_. And while it’s obvious that you like it here, I know _why_ you were stuck with my uncle. If you apply to CUNY, the tuition is a _lot_ lower than in most fancy places but the offer is great and if you live _here_ I think you could manage to attend without a problem and without needing a full ride. And if you ask me, you _really_ should.”

Brienne gapes at her for a moment — she hadn’t even _thought_ — or better, she had considered it as an option, but then had given it up because the costs of living in New York would have been too high for her father even if she had managed to get in with anything less than a full ride. But —

“Are you sure?” Brienne whispers, her heart suddenly beating faster. “I mean, I don’t — fine, I wanted to, but I _like_ it here. I don’t _need_ to —”

“Maybe you don’t,” Asha interrupts her, “but you _really_ should. Also, you’re still part time, but if keeps go on like this, I could pay you a full salary from the next month or so and you could save money, and then you could attend part time or _something_ , but it would honestly be a waste if you didn’t and I don’t like to see wasted potential.”

At _that_ , she flinches as she looks Jaime’s way. Not that he looks unhappy, all the contrary, but —

“Let me guess,” Asha says, not unkindly, “it’s not just _your_ potential being squandered, is it.”

“In his case it’s a lot worse,” she sighs, not denying it. “But you’re right. I’ll apply, but I’ll try to do it part time. I don’t really want to give this one job up.”

“Good,” Asha says, “then see to get the history lessons rolling. And as far as concerns _him_ , just you wait. This is a good place to get reacquainted with your squandered potential.”

Brienne nods, her throat feeling too choked up to speak.

Asha’s right. She _should_ give it a try. And then even if she wants to stay here, she _will_ have done it on her own terms.

— —

She tells Sansa that she will apply two days later, as she visits on her way back to Boston.

Sansa looks delighted at hearing it. “Finally,” she says, “you _did_ deserve it. Let me know how it goes when you do.”

“Of course I will,” she asks, “and dare I ask why you look _this_ giddy?”

“Oh, you can ask, but I think you’re going to have to wait a while to know. Sorry, I’m not jinxing it.”

Brienne assumes that maybe she’s seeing someone and she won’t push if Sansa doesn’t want to share. She nods and says that fine, she’s willing to wait. Then Sansa clears her throat.

“By the way,” she says, “I’ve been meaning to tell you and my mom has scolded me more than once about it and she was right, but I always end up forgetting. Anyway, her uncle actually lives here.”

“Wait, in New York?” Brienne barely remembers Brynden Tully — he left town when she was about ten, he never came back and the entire place talked shit about him for reasons she has never quite gathered. Catelyn Stark always seemed to be in contact with him, though, so she supposed it couldn’t have been something too bad.

“Yeah,” Sansa nods. “He went after our grandfather found out he didn’t fancy women and they had a row about it. The kind after which you don’t talk to each other anymore.”

Suddenly, the entire situation seems a lot clearer. “So,” Sansa says, “he’s been staying in Greenwich Village since then and he’s doing pretty good, for that matter. I think he works for some kind of counseling place, but he’s been here for ages and I think the guy he lives with is a social worker or _something_ , if you want to hit them up or you need anything they’d be glad to help out. Just tell him you know my mom.”

“Thanks,” Brienne says, meaning it. Another contact can’t hurt for sure. “Well, at some point we’ll need to move out, so maybe he has pointers for that?”

“Oh, he should, he’s changed houses some ten times since he came here. Anyway, Mom told him, so he knows. Just in case.”

Brienne thanks her again and decides that if they do need help relocating, she might really call him. Not that Asha couldn’t do it, or her friends couldn’t, but knowing people from different circles can only be a good thing. They move on discussing Brienne’s innovations for the bookshop — other than the whole children’s book club thing, she is running one concerning only female writers, one for banned books only and one for foreign authors only, and if the whole history lessons thing goes over well she’ll have to handle them, too, but she’s definitely _not_ going to complain about it when it means more money is coming in and she legitimately likes both the work and the challenge.

She smiles to herself.

Things _are_ looking up. She just hopes they will keep on going like this.

**November 1968**

“It’ll be fifty dollars,” the theater clerk says, and Jaime could _almost_ kiss her for not having said a thing the moment he handed them over with his right hand, which he’s not keeping bandaged anymore but which is now covered in bright red burn scars.

At least he can _somehow_ move his fingers. Badly enough that his handwriting is not legible anymore, but better than three months ago.

He pockets the tickets for the first showing of _King Lear_ that he got Brienne for their anniversary, figuring that she _would_ like it considering how much she raves about Shakespeare, and fuck, is it really coming in three days?

He can’t fucking believe he’s about to _celebrate their first anniversary_.

And honestly, it was worth it to get the good tickets even if he really shouldn’t give in too much to extra expenses — he still has the bulk of his old savings and the money from the children’s book club, and he’ll get some more when they re-do the same thing for the winter holidays, but it’s not _that_ much and he hates that he’s not contributing to the shared savings account that much, but Brienne has glared him into silence the one time he tried to tell her that maybe he should find something better even if Sarella is forbidding him from trying to use that hand to its full potential, and so he’s not trying anymore.

Still, it’s the _one_ thing he cares for celebrating this month, so he can splurge.

Fine, no, he’s lying, he is maybe kind of looking forward to Thanksgiving for the first time in years because Brienne managed to organize things so that they can do it in _their_ living room — Asha agreed as long as she didn’t have to cook — and other than her father and Miss Harlaw Tyrion also swore left and right that he’d come over and drag both Bronn and Sandor with, and so maybe it’d be… nice to do it, for once. It’s not like _before_ he had any reason to give a damn about it — he still thinks it’s a travesty that they should thank the heavens that the doesn’t believe in because a bunch of puritans massacred the native population when they arrived here, and back at the mansion it was a fucking nightmare, but none of the people involved this time actually cares for _that_ aspect and they just want an excuse to organize a reunion, so that’s fine by him. He walks out in the biting winter air, bundled in a new coat he had to buy because his old one was nowhere near acceptable for the New York cold wind, but he likes it. He likes _anything_ that doesn’t feel like his fucking hometown.

When he’s back upstairs, he hides the tickets in his nightstand’s drawer, he knows Brienne won’t look there anyway, and ignores the sounds of Asha having another three-way next door. Sure as fuck she knows how to have fun, he thinks for the umpteenth time, but it’s not like he envies her or he misses having sex with people who aren’t Brienne.

For that matter, it’s a damned relief to _only have sex with Brienne_ , never mind to have it on their terms and to not feel like he’s wasting a good chance for it whenever he _doesn’t_ feel like fucking and she says they don’t have to. One day he _won’t_ find it weird that she’s not expecting him to want it every other moment, he decides. One day. But for now he’s only too glad that he’s _not_ sleeping like shit as a general rule and that he doesn’t — _have_ to do anything he doesn’t want, when it comes to fucking.

( _For that matter, before —_ before _— with Cersei, if she wanted to and expected it, then — then he really couldn’t say no. He hasn’t given_ much _thought to the issue because he’s not sure he wants to touch it. But part of him knows he might have to, at some point — just not now._ )

The rest he can deal with later.

He doesn’t have to be down in the shop today or so Brienne told him, so he tidies up the room, cleans the kitchen since it was his turn anyway and puts some dinner together since he knows both Asha and Brienne will be ravenous when they come upstairs. They _are_ , and neither of them complains about his average cooking, and Asha tells them to _have fun_ when Brienne is obviously looking very eager to be back in their room.

He follows her after washing the dishes, figuring that he might as well spare them the hassle, and he finds her sitting on the bed, only wearing a pair of blue pajamas her father gave to her last Christmas.

“So,” he says, “before you do anything else, I think I have to inform you that we have plans on the 5th.”

“Oh, do we?”

“Indeed.” He takes the envelope with the tickets from his coat, then kicks off his shoes and moves on the bed with a groan — his feet are fine, most times, but _sometimes_ they like to remind him he jumped barefoot from a house in flames not even a year ago. “I figured I’d give it to you now before you ended up buying them for yourself.”

Brienne opens the envelope and makes a delighted noise before throwing her arms around his neck, dragging him down, her tongue slipping inside his mouth —

She moves back a while later after he’s ended up straddling her, breaking the kiss and still looking at him like he just gave her the best present in existence, and then clears her throat.

“Okay,” she says, “then maybe I should give you mine?”

“Is it a thing? because if it is then I can wait until the 5th, it’s only a few days left,” he says into her mouth before kissing her again, and she agrees to it, and then they’re not talking anymore and he figures Asha won’t mind if he screams her name for the next half hour.

After, they take a shower in the annexed bathroom and he hisses again as he puts his feet on the ground after they get out of it.

“Do they still hurt?”

“Some,” he shrugs. “Not a problem.”

She sends him a _look_ , but then says nothing and doesn’t press.

He could kiss her for it, and so he does.

— —

The morning of the 5th, she wakes him up with her mouth trailing along his neck, and he groans in displeasure when she moves away and doesn’t immediately lean back down.

“Right,” she says, “I think it’s time for _my_ anniversary present.”

“And do you have to get out of bed to get it?”

“Yes,” she smirks back, and her long legs move over him as she lowers herself to his side of the bed and opens her side of the closet, taking out a fairly large box covered in bright red paper and dropping it in his lap.

“So,” she says as he opens it, “please don’t take it as — never mind. Just go ahead.”

He raises an eyebrow, wanting to ask her what he could possibly get offended about, and then he goes on and unwraps the entire thing, to uncover —

He’s really glad he’s on the bed or he’d have risked dropping it. “Brienne, you _didn’t have to_ —”

She shakes her head. “Do you think I don’t notice that you hate how you write with your left? I figured that while you’re working on that hand, you might want to use it.”

And — shit. He does. It’s a portable typewriter, of a nice cream color and _Royal_ embedded on the upper right corner, and it’s used but _very_ well-kept, and for once he’s not seeing letters floating in front of him as he looks at the keys and if he thinks that now maybe he _could_ write long things with it without hating his handwriting or having to get headaches over wondering if he misspelled something again as much as he does right now —

“And what should I have _taken it as_?”

She shrugs. “I’m not wanting to imply you _can’t_ do it, but —”

 _Of course_ , he thinks fondly, _of course_ she’d think that, but — she’s dead wrong. “Brienne, I’m not dignifying that with an answer. Please get down here and stop overthinking your good ideas, all right?”

She smiles, relieved, and does.

— —

The play is actually pretty damn good — exceedingly sad, true, but Brienne doesn’t seem to mind and so he keeps to himself his resolution to get something funnier next year.

After, they get a couple of drinks outside the theater and when they stumble back home they’re pleasurably tipsy and he’s quick in kicking off his shoes, except that then he’s not careful as he puts his foot back on the ground and he flinches just as Brienne was kissing him, so she _does_ feel it.

“Everything all right?” She asks, moving back.

“Yeah, don’t worry. It’s just, you know.” He nods downwards and she looks back up at him knowingly. Then she half-smiles and he thinks she just had some idea that he most likely won’t say no to, he never had to whenever that expression crossed her face.

“I do,” she says, pensively. “Right. Pay me a favor and sit on the bed, won’t you? I’ll come back in a moment.”

He does, kicking off his jeans and underwear while he can, and then she comes back from the bathroom — with a wet towel and a basin?

“What —” He starts.

“Just you wait,” she says, kneeling down on the ground, then she grabs his left ankle in her hands and checks the status of his foot, and — what is she even —

“Come on,” he says, “it’s just a couple scars. They’ll stop hurting in a month.”

“I don’t doubt it,” she says, “but that’s not the point.” Then she runs the wet towel over the sole delicately, not pushing too much and not scraping either, and when she’s satisfied with having cleaned that one foot she moves on to the other, and he still doesn’t get what she’s aiming at —

Until she leans down as she delicately brings his ankle upwards and kisses the side of it.

He gasps, not having expected it.

“Brienne, you don’t have to —”

“Who says I don’t want to?” She says, winking, and then kisses the other side of his ankle, and then trails her mouth along the top of his foot delicately and then _under_ it, her lips brushing over the scarring in a way that’s almost maddening, and he already feels his arms starting to give out —

And then she smirks a bit wider and wraps her lips around his first toe, sucking on it slightly, just enough to make him shudder all over again, and _shit_ , his sensitivity is weird down there because the scars _hurt_ but he used to be ticklish underneath and now he’s not anymore, but the way she’s massaging his ankle as she sucks lightly on each single one of his toes is sending shivers up his legs and his spine after and by the time she delicately puts that foot on the ground and moves to the other one, doing the exact same procedure, he’s sweating and his arms feel strained and he’s getting harder and _harder_ and she most likely can see it.

“Touch yourself,” she says then, firm but so very gentle, and he has no idea of what’s her target here but he’s entirely down with finding out so he does reach down with his left, starting to jerk himself off very slowly —

And then she wraps each of her hands around each of his feet and starts massaging underneath slowly, delicately so that it doesn’t hurt but enough that he feels it, going from the heel to his toes and back, her rough fingertips threading over the scarring still so very gently, and then she tells him to go faster before kissing both of his knees, and he does, telling her he won’t last very long like this, but then she says it’s all right and he should let it go when he feels like it and she wants to watch, and so he does, jerking himself off faster and faster, his motions becoming erratic as she alternates that massage with sucking on his toes _again_ , and by the time he spills all over his hand his hips almost jerk upwards and he cries her name, and she keeps on kissing the side of his ankle as he does, waiting until he’s completely spent and he falls back on the bed, his body feeling warm and way, way more relaxed than it was when he walked inside the room, and then she crawls back up on the bed, pushing him against the cushions, kissing him full, slow, her hands grasping at his hair, and he feels like he’s floating and he asks her if she could maybe do that again —

“Of course,” she grins against his mouth before moving back down on the bed, and he screams her name for a long, long time after.

**January 1969**

Mid-month, they sit down to make a point of their money-related situation.

To both his and Brienne’s surprise, they actually are _not_ doing too bad. He hasn’t touched the bulk of his own savings, she has saved as much as she could from her paychecks since May and he used his bookshop money to buy groceries if needed but he _did_ save some of it.

“You know,” she says, “if I’m getting paid full for this year… we _could_ find an apartment.”

He considers it for a moment.

It’s not that he doesn’t like it here, Asha is honestly as fine as it gets for a roommate, and maybe they could stay and save some more, but — he pictures the two of them in their own small place, where they could finally unbox their things properly, and as much as sharing a room is no problem suddenly it looks entirely more palatable. Except —

“We can’t do that just on _your_ paycheck, though,” he says, hating that he’d only contribute with _savings_ if they went for it.

“Hey, we _could_ for a bit, and Sarella did say you won’t risk hurting that hand for good in another couple of months. Maybe we can call up Sansa’s great-uncle and ask him if he’ll give us some tips?”

That can’t hurt, Jaime decides, and so Brienne calls him and he agrees to meet them next Sunday near his own place.

— —

They meet in a bar in Greenwich Village that’s definitely _not_ conceived for a straight clientele. Sansa’s uncle is in his early fifties or late forties, his hair is the same auburn as his niece’s except streaked in grey in places, and they have the same bright blue eyes, and he’s extremely welcoming if not of too many words, but that’s fine, he’d rather interact with people who say what they mean rather than people who’ll talk a lot without getting anywhere. He hears them out as he sips his coffee, then considers what they told him.

“If I were you,” he says, “I’d aim to open a bank account and start saving there instead of just handing cash first and foremost, but never mind _that_. Anyway, I think that if you aren’t looking for exceedingly large places or extra fancy stuff, and I doubt you are —”

“We’re not,” Brienne confirms.

“Then you could get as far as four rooms spending around two hundred per month or even less if you look for roommates, otherwise you can get a studio for less than one hundred but it’s _two_ of you coming from one room only, I suppose you’d rather have more.”

They both agree to that — nothing to say. Brynden confirms them that their own area might be around the same price and that having roommates would significantly lower the overall amount, but then seems to understand that they’re really rather have their own place —

And then he appears to realize _something_.

“Wait,” he says, “I _think_ that maybe I remembered something that you might find useful, but you’ve got to talk with my partner. Who should be home if he didn’t get called in at work,” he says fondly, and then invites them up.

On the way, he tells them that the guy he’s in a relationship with has a job with the main neighborhood social work office and runs this fairly large group home not far from their place, and he was talking a few days ago about this apartment that no one wanted because it was right next the group home in question and so it came _very_ cheap and without roommates. Brienne looks at Jaime and he nods and they follow Brynden up to his place, a nice apartment on the fourth floor of a dark orange brick building with flowers all over most of the balconies.

His partner is indeed home.

What Jaime had no idea about was that he _would_ recognize him.

“… The hell,” he says as soon as the man stands up to shake his hand and then stops in his tracks, having _also_ recognized him, “ _Jon Connington_?”

“Fuck me,” Connington wheezes, “ _Jaime Lannister_?”

“… Do you two know each other?” Brienne asks, surprised.

Connington kind of goes red in the face. “Er, well, yes. Sort of. I mean, not that we _knew_ each other that well, but —”

“He was into the guy my sister eventually married,” Jaime says taking pity on him.

“Was it _that_ obvious?” Connington replies, not trying to deny it.

“Well, _yes_ ,” Jaime says, “but I’m delighted to see you moved on.” He _does_ remember that the guy suddenly left just after the wedding, not that Jaime was there to witness it.

“Took a while,” he replies, “but I might have. And I could say same to you since when I left home —”

“Yeah, _well_ , I also moved on,” Jaime says, “and good for me that I did.”

 _Really_ good for him that he did.

They explain the situation while Brynden laughs his ass off for the next five minutes.

“Right,” Connington says after Brienne’s done, “there _is_ that apartment near the group home I’m supervising, it’s not even that far. I think they’re desperate to rent it, it’s some ninety bucks for four rooms.”

“… _What_ ,” Brienne blurts. “I mean, that’s — that’s too little. Is there a catch?”

“Well,” Connington shrugs, “that it’s right next to the aforementioned group home.”

“And is it _that_ much of a problem?” Jaime asks.

“It’s — well, pretty large for standards,” Connington sighs, “and it has kids from pretty much any age and most of them come from fucked up situations, which is why some of the neighbors tried to force us to move, but the city never took those complaints into consideration. For now. So yeah, it’s that bad, apparently.”

Jaime turns to look at Brienne. She looks back at him. He can read on her face that she’s down with at least seeing the place.

“Do you think we could check it out?” Brienne asks.

“Sure,” Connington nods, “let me call the guy, I have the number because he comes volunteering once in a while.”

He does. The guy apparently can’t believe someone wants to see the damned place, and is absolutely fine with showing them now.

Connington agrees to bring them and so they follow him for the next ten minutes, until he gets to a medium-sized gray brick building, not as nice as the one they just came from and with a lot less flowers at its windows. The owner introduces himself as Mance Rayder _but please call me by name or I’d feel old,_ and he brings them to the third floor, whose balcony is right in front of another from the group home building.

“People don’t want to come here assuming that some of them kids might slip inside and steal shit,” Mance explains. “Honest, at this point if you want it I’m willing to give it to the both of you for ninety per month as long as I make _some_ money off it instead of keeping it empty gathering dust when no one’s looking to buy these days. Please take a look around.”

Brienne nods at him and they start walking around — the entrance door leads into a reasonably-sized living room, the one that has the cursed balcony in question. There’s a kitchen on the left of it, not too large but adequate, then a hallway on the kitchen’s right. She turns on the light and he follows her — the first door is a bathroom large enough for a tub. It doesn’t look exceedingly new, but it’s not dirty either and when Brienne turns open the faucet it pours clean water. Good enough, he supposes.

They check the rest — there is another small room on the left, a medium sized one at the end of the corridor and a larger third on the right. Brienne’s fingers grasp his arm.

“We could sleep here,” she says, nodding towards the empty room.

“Those other two could work to have people over,” he agrees, “and the living room _is_ pretty large. And honest, what do we even have that people would want to steal, _if_ it was a problem, which I’m fairly sure is not the case?”

“Yeah,” she agrees. “I mean, we should take a better look around just to see if there isn’t _another_ catch, but if it’s the case… shit. We _could_ afford it.”

“I think,” he says, “that we should inspect the damned place very thoroughly _now_.”

Turns out, there’s no other catch not counting that one out of four burners in the kitchen doesn’t work, but that’s really not anything they can’t deal with. By the time they’re done, they tell Mance they’re taking the apartment.

The man almost thanks _them_ for taking it off his hands.

By the time they’re out of it, they’re both damned giddy with excitement, and fuck he can’t believe they’ve found such a good deal for so little, and Connington is looking at them like he’s exceedingly glad he facilitated that deal and promises to keep in touch.

They about can’t stop grinning all the way back home.

— —

“And what is _that_?” Brienne asks as he hands over a roll that she’s pretty sure he hadn’t packed back in the day.

“Oh,” he says, “I saw it in a shop the other day and I thought I’d buy it for the living room.”

She stops putting novels into the used bookshelves they got at a flea’s market before moving in, then waits for him to open it — the rest of his movie posters have been lovingly put up in _their_ bedroom, and Brienne only was too happy to agree. She laughs in delight the moment she sees it’s a _Stagecoach_ one, large enough to take up the entire wall behind their flea market red sofa.

“I think,” she says, “that we should absolutely put it up _now._ ”

When it is, Jaime decides, it looks like it was made to fit that damned wall.

The rest of the house is still improvable — they’re going to buy some more furniture later and the guest rooms only have one bed and a nightstand in each of them, and they still need to get Brienne’s record player from home so he just hopes her dad can drive over with it at some point, and the bookshelves aren’t as full as they could be, but —

But it’s _nice_ , and it’s _theirs_ , and even if he had to touch his savings account they could pay rent for years given how low it is, and he thinks he wants to cry just _thinking_ about it.

“Hey,” Brienne says, sitting next to him on the sofa, “you all right?”

“Yeah,” he says. “Just — I got emotional for one moment here. It’s fine.”

She sends him a _look_. Then she asks him if they should just go to bed already.

He’s only too glad when she absolutely agrees to tie him up to their new bed which they actually _did_ spend money on because they wanted a good one.

Now if only he could find something _better_ than occasionally trailing after Brienne at the shop, that’d be perfect.

If only.

— —

It’s the end of the month and Brienne’s doing overtime because Asha is trying to organize a launch party for both poetry books a friend of hers wrote and they need to call a number of agents that honestly sounds daunting to him, and so he’s made dinner and left some for when she comes back and tried to do some writing exercises with his right hand — not too successful, but better than last time.

Shit, he _is_ glad that she got him the typewriter. At least if he needs to write something longer than notes he can just use that and be done with it. He sits at the old table they got at the same flea market, realizing that they’re going to have to change it soon because it’s unstable as hell, and as he does, his eyes fall on those damned notebooks of his that Brienne insisted to stash into one of the half-empty bookshelves.

He hasn’t looked at them since they left, he has no need to and he doesn’t know if he wants to, but at the same time he just can’t stop thinking about what she had written in the new evaluation for the fucking poem, and —

Thing is, back _then_ , he had tried to do the proper assignment but then he had given up on it because he couldn’t figure out how to count the damned accents or do the _metric_ never mind that his ear for rhyming is shit, and _that_ had come out instead and he had felt better after putting it down. Except that then it didn’t last long given that evaluation.

But.

If Brienne wasn’t lying in hers — which is most likely true, she wouldn’t — then it wasn’t so bad, and she’s thrown at him enough modern poetry books that he knows no one looks for metric or rhyming these days.

Maybe he could —

He shakes his head, wondering what the hell is wrong with him — no way he could do it _now_ , who is he kidding, and then he hears someone crying.

 _The hell_ —

He looks up, at the balcony window.

Oh.

It’s coming from the group home’s balcony. And it’s loud — it sounds like it’s a boy, and he puts on his coat before opening the window and walking out on his own.

He was right — it’s indeed a boy, on the opposite balcony, can’t be older than nine but he thinks he’s being generous in that assessment, and he’s crying his eyes out as he wraps himself in a fairly thin blanket.

_To think that people were concerned about thieves._

“Hey,” he asks, figuring that if no one’s come out yet no one will, “what’s wrong?”

The kid looks up at him with wide brown eyes — he has hair the same color just darker, his lower lip is trembling and his face is stained with tears.

He gives Jaime a small shrug and says nothing.

Jaime doesn’t push and leans down on his own balcony.

“She left me,” the kid finally sobs, and it doesn’t make that any clearer, but Jaime figures that at least it means he wants to talk to someone.

“Who?” he prods gently. “Someone in there?”

The kid shakes his head. “No. My — my mom.” Then he breaks down in crying fits again.

Jaime thinks his stomach just about turned itself over. He prods some more and finds out that the kid is named Podrick but everyone calls him Pod, that he’s turning seven in a couple of months and that his mom was never around and no other relative was around period, and at some point she said she couldn’t handle _it_ anymore, whatever _it_ was, left him at home and just never came back. The neighbors heard him crying when he didn’t have food left to eat and called social services and he’s been here for a week but mostly everyone else finds hilarious that he stutters a lot and he hates it, and at that point he’s crying so hard you can barely distinguish the words.

No one has come to look for him yet, but Connington _did_ say that they had a lot of kids in there and dinner time has long passed.

He _does_ have Connington’s home and office number, though, he left them both.

“You know what,” Jaime asks, “I get it. I mean, my mom left, too, except that it was because she died, but when she did I felt… well. Like she had just disappeared for no reason.”

He hands the kid a tissue he had in his pocket and Pod takes it gratefully, wiping at his face with it, but it doesn’t seem to help that much.

“Tell you what, would you like some pancakes?”

“… What?” The kid looks like he can’t believe what he just heard.

“My girlfriend’s real good at making them. There’s some leftovers in the fridge, I can heat them up for you.”

“… I never had any,” the kid admits with a thin voice.

“Well then,” Jaime says, trying to not sound sad at hearing it, “then it should be rectified. Come on, you can get back from the balcony in half an hour or so.”

Obviously, the kid hasn’t heard many lessons about not trusting strangers because a moment later he’s climbed over his own balcony and into theirs, but — he’ll just tell Connington later. He ushers the kid inside, heats three pancakes for him, pours maple syrup over them generously and watches him eat the first with a look of wonder on his face that makes his stomach turn over itself because he doesn’t think he must have looked that different in that diner with Brienne on their first date.

Then he says he needs to make a call and he’ll be back in a moment. The kid nods and eats the second slower.

Jaime heads for the kitchen, grabs the phone and dials Connington’s office number. It’s eight thirty, maybe he’s still around —

“Jon Connington, can I help you?”

Good.

“Hi,” he says, “it’s Jaime Lannister. Sorry to disturb you at this hour, but I think I’ve got a situation with one of your kids?”

“Shit,” Connington says, “did anyone actually try to sneak in —”

“No,” Jaime interrupts. “Absolutely not, it’s just, I heard the kid crying on the balcony, I went out to talk to him and he sounded miserable so I told him he could have some of my leftover breakfast pancakes and now he’s in my living room eating them. I just figured you should know in case someone thinks he’s missing or anything.”

“Oh, thanks,” Connington says, relieved, “no one noticed yet but if he was alone on the balcony — wait, who’s the kid?”

“Uh, he said the name was Podrick. Podrick Payne, I think?”

Connington says nothing for a moment. “Huh,” he says, “you mind if I drop over to get him in thirty?”

“No problem,” Jaime tells him, “take your time.” He closes the call, goes back in the living room and spends the remaining thirty minutes trying to provide entertainment — he teaches the kid to play gin rummy and gets sorely beaten after the first two games, and he’s just lost the sixth, to Pod’s utter delight, when the doorbell rings.

Connington shows up on the other side assuring everyone that he’s not mad or anything and seems pretty damned surprised at the scene he finds in front of him, tells Jaime he’ll be back after bringing the kid back to home base and Jaime promises Pod that if he ever wants to talk he’ll be in the living room most times. He seems pretty happy with that answer.

He cleans things up in the time it takes Connington to come back, and Jaime can see at once that he has something on his mind.

“Anything wrong?” He asks.

“The contrary,” Connington replies. “Right, so, let’s cut it down to the chase. That kid has been with us for a week and he’s talked to _no one_ in the staff.”

“He… hasn’t?”

“No. Maybe he tried with some of the other kids but they made fun of him and so he stopped. None of us has gotten a single word out of him. And you did in five minutes.”

Jaime shrugs, suddenly feeling — weird. He doesn’t know what to make of it.

“I guess I got lucky,” he finally says.

“Maybe,” Connington says. “Or _maybe_ — listen, I’ll be straight with you. We’re understaffed. _Very_ much understaffed. Never mind that I’d need a lot more of counselors or case workers, but there are also… three people total just to keep an eye on them.”

“And how many kids you have in there?”

Connington laughs bitterly. “Sixty. We couldn’t have more than forty at worst, but such is the system. And I think I can spot at once people who would be right for this kind of job.”

“Wait, you’re telling me that —”

“I think,” he says, “that if tomorrow you want to show up around ten AM after I’m done with most of the bureaucracy drama happening in the mornings, I could see if I’m right or wrong about you potentially being pretty damn good at _that_.”

Jaime thinks he hasn’t heard right. “You want me to —”

“See if you can handle them. Because if you didn’t get _lucky_ and you can get them to fucking talk to you that easily and you don’t have a better job lined up, I _could_ absolutely do with one more person looking after them. So, can you be there?”

“I could,” Jaime says cautiously, aware that his heartbeat just got faster. “But — I mean, are you sure? You do know —”

“Oh, _please_ ,” Connington cuts him off. “It’s not a job that requires qualifications, _I_ might know what you used to do back home but no one else does, all of those kids are there because no one gives a damn about them, do you think anyone is going to care about that? I can spot people who shouldn’t be around children a mile away and you aren’t one of them by far. So, you coming tomorrow or not?”

Jaime has a feeling that if he overthinks this, he’ll do something akin to self-sabotage, and so he decides not to. After all, at worst, he fucks it up and Connington stops being deluded about his supposed skills.

“Yes,” he says, and he finds himself grinning as he closes the door, even if he’s sure it’s not going to end up in anything concrete.

— —

“So,” he tells Brienne some three days later as she puts away the last of the dishes, “I think I have… good news?”

“Why are you putting it as a question then?”

“Because — never mind.” She _does_ have a point. “It’s just, apparently Connington thinks I’m gifted or something and wants to hire me?”

 _He_ doesn’t know how he feels about it. _She_ , on the other hand, immediately brightens up, looking absolutely delighted at the prospect. “Did he?”

“Yeah. I said yes, I mean, it’s a paycheck and he seemed _very_ convinced and he’s officially paying me from next month on, and — I guess that if he’s sure —”

“Hey,” she says, “slow down a moment. You sound way less convinced than you should.”

He shrugs. Shit, he’s terrible at verbalizing this kind of crap but he got better and it’s only done the both of them good, so he _will_ , while he silently curses all the reasons why he _is_ crap at verbalizing things.

“It just makes no sense,” he finally blurts. “I mean, people just — don’t generally look at me and think that I’m _gifted_ at things especially if they include trusting me with others. Never mind _minors_. I keep thinking he’s seeing things.”

“And I’m thinking that if I don’t remember wrong… it’s along the lines of what you’ve always wanted to do with your life, isn’t it?”

Well, shit. She _did_ hear him, back in the day.

“Well, _yes_ , but — that was before —”

“I think that if it’s _his_ job to assess who’s good at it or not maybe he’s right and you should grasp the concept that some people actually don’t live for tearing others down at every other round. Pay me a favor and stop assuming that having had sex for money defines your entire personality, because it _doesn’t_.”

“Shit, you _do_ know you should give pep talks for a job?”

“I’ll pass,” she smiles back, “but I have better ideas when it comes to giving _you_ pep talks.”

“… Do you,” he says, his throat going dry at once.

They’re in the bedroom maybe a minute later, and while they had started it kissing savagely, she slows down, taking her time in pulling off clothing on the both of them, pushing him down on the bed gently, and then she asks him to keep his hands on the pillow’s sides and not to move them and he doesn’t as her lips trail down his neck, he moans into her mouth just after she tells him that he’s doing perfectly and he shouldn’t move still, and he doesn’t until he’s come in her mouth after she took her sweet time bringing him off, and then she moves back up again, her lips trailing along his cheekbones and his forehead before she kisses him again, her hands going back to his wrists, and it makes his stomach turn in all the right ways that she keeps her touch lighter on the right one, and then she raises it and places a kiss on the reddened skin —

He’s pretty sure the neighbors hear him when he screams the moment she takes one of his burned fingers in between her lips so very delicately, kissing her way down the outer side of his hand later, and fuck _fuck_ she’ll be the death of him except that maybe she’ll be the exact contrary, and he sinks down into the mattress as she brings it down to in the middle of her legs where she’s so wet he could slide inside her in one motion but that doesn’t matter, not _now_ —

She leans down, asks him what he wants, but he’s tipping towards the side where he can barely put three words together and she _has_ to know, so he glances at her waist instead and she says it’s absolutely doable and kneels down on top of him and he immediately buries his face in the middle of her legs, relishing in the feeling of her hands keeping his head steady without pushing or tugging at his hair or worse tearing it, in all the noises she’s making, in the way she’s holding herself still at the position where he has better access, and then he just — stops thinking about anything else and just runs her tongue along her clit and inside her until she’s clenching above him and shaking all over and screaming his name, too, and then everything but her is unfocused and his entire body feels too heavy to move, and he sighs in contentment when she draws him closer as she cards through his hair and drops kisses on his forehead and cheeks and on his mouth, and then she whispers that he really needs to stop assuming people will think shit of him regardless because no one with a functioning brain would, and he doesn’t know if he fully believes her but he _wants_ to.

Well.

He has time to grasp that concept, doesn’t he?

**March 1969**

“I need a favor,” Jaime tells her on a Sunday morning they both have free even if technically he’s on call, but then again he has to go _next door_ if they do.

“Anything in my power,” Brienne says as she hands him over some of the pancakes she cooked for the morning.

“It’s — nothing that terrible and it’s probably ridiculous, but — ah, shit. Wait a moment.”

He stands up, opens one of the drawers under a still free bookshelf (but they’re filling up fast), then hands her a blank folder wordlessly. The folder in question is from the group home, but when she opens it she realizes that what’s inside is _not_ work-related.

It’s a single sheet of paper, and he wrote on them with the typewriter —

_Oh._

It’s a short poem. She doesn’t know what to expect, but then she reads it and —

_Roads_

_The first was Main Street on July 4th_

_It looks large and bright and it feels like you belong there_

_Until it’s over and_

_It’s empty and you’re walking on trash and_

_You see fireworks in the sky but they’re not for you_

_There were others_

_Country roads overcome with weeds_

_Concrete small town dead ends closing in on you_

_Abandoned streets where a few flowers grew in broken concrete_

_None of them are for you either_

_The last is a highway_

_Sometimes it feels like you’re driving too fast_

_Others you think you can’t see the end_

_But there’s the open blue sky if you look up_

_This one feels right._

She’s halfway sure she teared up reading it.

“Please don’t tell me it was _that_ bad,” he jokes, and oh, wait, she _did_ tear up —

“For — or maybe I think it’s _that_ good,” she says, not trying to keep the exasperated tone from her voice, but it doesn’t really work because the hand holding the folder is shaking.

“Well then,” he says, sounding — relieved?, “I need you to do two things with it.”

“Okay. Sure. What?”

“First, if there are mistakes just — you can fix them. Second… just hide that folder somewhere I wouldn’t search for it.”

What the —

“… Fine, but _why_?”

He shrugs, not looking at her. “I wrote it last night. It kind of — happened. I woke up and I felt like it and by the time I got back to my senses I was finished, and the first instinct I had was throwing it in the trash and I _still_ feel like doing it and I _know_ I shouldn’t, but — just hide it somewhere. For now.”

They should probably talk about this.

But she can see it’s not the right time and he looks like he’s pushing himself enough for now, so she won’t press it. “Sure,” she tells him, “I’ll — go do it now then.”

“Sure. I’ll wait.”

She goes back to the hallway, considers her options and then slides the folder inside one of her old school English Lit textbooks she figured she’d keep around in case she needed it — it’s large enough that it fits.

She slides it back in place, then goes back to the living room.

“All done,” she says. “If you write more, feel free to hand them over.”

“Good, because I trust you more with that shit than myself. Fuck, I don’t even know what I’m doing —”

“Hey,” she says, “it’s good, you know? I mean, even if you don’t do anything with them it’s a damn good thing you’re letting it out, so stop worrying and just go for it. It’d be a good thing even if they were bad. Except that they’re _not_ , so — don’t worry about it, okay?”

He nods, biting down on his lip. “Fair,” he says. “Fair, I guess I’ll try. Thanks, I —”

He was about to say something.

Then someone knocks on the balcony’s window.

Brienne rolls her eyes fondly — that kid Pod he invited inside in January never quite stopped showing up and Jaime didn’t tell him he _couldn’t_ , and Brienne has honestly no issues with that. The kid’s pretty sweet and he seems to like the both of them, and she might have started making extra pancakes because he tends to drop by on Sunday.

She stands up and opens the door, letting him in, and he has a sheepish look to his eyes when she hands him the already separated pancakes while Jaime tries to not laugh in front of the scene.

Then she notices that the kid has a bruise on his arm and turns out that some of the older kids roughened him up.

“You know you _could_ tell Mr. Connington,” Jaime says, not unkindly.

“’S no use,” Pod says. “He’s nice, but he can’t be there all the time and it’s not like it stops them or anything.”

Brienne _shouldn’t_ say what she has just thought —

But then again, she reasons, a bit of self-defense never hurt anyone.

“How about I teach you how to make sure they don’t bother you anymore?”

The kid’s eyes go bright in a moment. Jaime absolutely volunteers to demonstrate the procedure.

Two days later, Pod looks very glad to tell her that her couple of moves _did_ work and now people leave him alone.

— —

A week later, Jaime slides her another couple of sheets.

Then another three two weeks later.

She files them all inside the folder and waits for the moment he realizes that those poems are actually _really damn good_.

One day.

_One day._

They do have time, after all.

**June 1969**

She probably _should_ have tried to be dignified about it.

Except that the moment she opens the letter and reads that not only she got into Brooklyn College _but_ she also will have to pay minimal fees on account of her performance in high school, the fact that she lives here and that she won’t need a dorm bed she about bursts out in tears of the happy kind, a hand going to her mouth, and she doesn’t stop for a good ten minutes —

Which is when Jaime walks inside the room coming in from his afternoon shift and finds her in tears at the living room table while grinning so hard it hurts.

“Is — something wrong?” He asks, but she shakes her head and just hands him the letter, and a moment later he’s thrown her arms around her neck and they’re kissing and he’s talking about celebrating, but —

But she’s not so beside herself that she doesn’t notice that _something_ is off.

“Hey,” she says after regaining some breath, “everything all right?”

“Uh, yeah,” he says. “I mean, I should probably tell you a few things, but nothing that can’t wait until later. We can get Chinese and celebrate, or get _something else_ and celebrate —”

“Jaime, how about you tell me _now_?” She asks. “I’ve had my moment. We can always celebrate after you spill.”

He sits down at the table, shaking his head. “It’s just — uhm. Connington cornered me again today.”

“… And? Why do you sound like he’s just fired you?”

“All the contrary, actually.”

… What the hell.

Why is he making it sound like it’s a tragedy?

“Explain. In detail.”

“Uh, let’s just say — it’s been a difficult week and shit happened and apparently out of the four people who have to directly handle the kids I was the only one who didn’t lose his shit at any of them out of stress or _something_. And he shows up staring at me and telling me that I could be entirely more useful if I actually had some kind of title to it because I could _do_ something rather than just make sure they don’t kill themselves and occasionally talk to someone. I told him that I couldn’t fucking handle college back in the day because of the reasons we all know and that I’m entirely too old for getting titles, he looks at me like he’s absolutely not impressed and tells me that he doesn’t need me to get a full degree but that there’s some kind of one-year diploma for social work you _could_ get which would — well. Give me enough of a damned title to have some responsibility in there. Including possibly _sort of_ counseling, at which I told him that _me_ doing that would be an exceedingly bad idea.”

He stops, takes another deep breath, then goes on. “So he says he can actually see _that_ but your friend’s uncle _actually_ does free psychology counseling in there when he’s not working and he’d see it as a worthwhile investment if he sent _me_ there while I get the damned thing and at that point I could probably manage it. And I said I’d think about it but — I don’t know,” he admits, sounding like he can’t even begin to process it, and she wants to murder his teachers all over.

“You don’t know _what_?” She asks.

“Please, with my history it’s more likely that I’ll flunk after three months if I’m lucky and one year won’t even scratch the surface of the crap I should work through. And —” He stops, doesn’t quite look at her. “Not counting _you_ or Tyrion, and neither of you is impartial, I don’t think anyone else ever thought I _could_ do that kinda thing. Last thing I need is disappointing more —”

She can see where he’s headed.

She puts a hand on his wrist. “Do you want to know my opinion?” She asks.

“Share,” he shrugs.

“I think that it seems almost too good that I’m going back to school in September and you should… when?”

“October, _if_ —”

“Well, even better. It’s right at the same time. We can manage it, I think. Hey, I could give you a hand and you could quiz me back, and it’s not like you _can’t_ do it. You’d need more time than average probably, but if it’s just one year long and it’s a diploma you probably just have to take the final exam and not more than one. If you time things well you could absolutely manage it, I think. I’m personally making you a schedule if you want to.”

He looks back up at her. He seems to consider it, even if he looks conflicted. His fingers tangle with hers. “It — sounds too good. I mean, I don’t —”

“I’m fairly sure you’d disappoint _him_ more if you didn’t even try rather than if you tried and failed. You can’t disappoint _me_ , but I don’t see why you wouldn’t make it. And don’t give me that _I’m too old_ bullshit, you’re not fucking sixty and people _do_ go back to school at that age. But that said… it’s not about whether you’d flunk or not, I think.”

“Oh, really. Then _what_ is it about?”

“It’s about what you _want_ ,” she says. “Jaime, not to presume anything, but after you spent years doing a job you hated no one should tell you to go for things you don’t want. If you’re fine with what you’re doing now then you don’t _have_ to do it. But if you want to give it a try then why the hell not? You’re good at it, Connington knows it, we all know it except for _you_. So, do you want it?”

He thinks about it for a moment, then gives her a tired look, but he’s half smiling. For real.

“What if I kind of do want to give it a try?”

“Then I think we should celebrate for two,” she grins back at him, and then they’re kissing and they don’t move for a while, not until Pod knocks on the window again and Brienne lets him in. Then she thinks she has an idea.

“Hey,” she asks him, “just for a kick, but — can I ask you a very humble opinion?”

“Sure,” the kid says, nodding earnestly.

“My boyfriend here,” she says, nodding towards Jaime, “might have just been told from your common supervisor, as in Mr. Connington, that if he studied for one year he could get this piece of paper that would get him to counsel the whole lot of you and at least take on specific cases. Do you think he should do that?”

Pod look fairly confused at being asked _that_.

“… Why, is there a reason why he _shouldn’t_?” He asks back, not sounding so convinced.

Brienne glances at Jaime. His eyes just widened a hell of a lot.

Shit, he _really_ thought that he wasn’t being _good_ at his job, didn’t he.

“Why don’t you explain _him_?” Brienne winks at the both of them. “I’ll get you some orange juice while he does.”

Jaime glares at her. Pod just keeps on looking extremely confused. Brienne goes to get the orange juice.

“It’s nothing,” he tries to minimize, but it doesn’t feel very convincing. “I just, I don’t know if I’d be good with that kind of responsibility.”

Pod’s face goes from confused to — well. Brienne doesn’t know if she has a word. But he’s definitely wondering if Jaime has lost his mind or something of the kind.

“Are you sick?” Pod finally asks.

“… No?” Jaime replies. “Why would I be?”

“Have you _talked_ to the other case workers? Most of them don’t listen if you try to explain them anything and the ones who listen assume they know better than you anyway. _You_ don’t.”

Jaime just _stares_ at him.

Pod stares back, then seems to realize something. “… You _do_ know that all of us think that _you_ should have their job, don’t you?”

“ _What_?”

“He definitely doesn’t,” Brienne supplies for him. “But now he does, _right_?”

“Yeah,” Jaime says, looking like someone just punched him in the kidney. “Yeah, I do. I guess.”

“Please,” Pod scoffs, “Pia and the other girls are _still_ raving about how you did their hair.”

Brienne _has_ to laugh. “Sorry, he did _what_?”

Jaime goes red in the fact at once but Pod doesn’t really seem to care. “Pia’s one of the girls, her mom’s dead, her father’s nowhere to be found and her uncle broke half of her teeth and that’s why she’s there. And of course she hates it and some others make fun of her for it, and so _he_ ,” Pod nods towards Jaime, “asked her what was wrong, she told him when she never talks to the others, and she also said she hated looking so ugly. So he told her it was nonsense and she just needed some help here and there, she asked him how, and he went to find some — whatever stuff girls use for their hair.”

“Let me guess,” Brienne interrupts, “did he give her a _very_ nice French braid?”

“Yeah,” Pod says, “and she actually looked real pretty, so all the other girls asked for one if they had long hair and he was there braiding hair for two hours. And they haven’t stopped talking ‘bout it.”

“Then he _really_ is worrying for nothing,” Brienne keeps on, not minding that Jaime is looking like he wishes the ground would swallow him.

“Totally,” Pod confirms, sounding like he _really_ hopes Jaime considers taking that job.

Well, hopefully it _will_ make Jaime get that he’s indeed worrying for fucking nothing. But other than that —

“Hey,” Brienne tells the kid a beat later, “we’re getting Chinese downstairs because we need to celebrate that I’m going back to school and _he_ is most likely getting that diploma. Fancy coming with us?”

“We never have Chinese,” Pod says, wistfully.

He _does_ have it before they have him go back through the window. Jaime shakes his head, muttering that they should keep a better eye on them, but he sounds like he _has_ taken his decision.

Good.

Brienne thinks she’s looking forward to this fall.

Very much.

**August 1969, take one**

“I’ve got a proposition for you,” Brienne tells him on the 5th. It’s hot as hell, he’s tired as hell because heat makes people under the age of fourteen especially cranky and he’s never felt his age as acutely as right now.

“I’m all ears,” he groans, falling down on the sofa. It might have been old, but it’s still comfortable at least.

“You know that friend of Asha’s, Oberyn?”

“Sarella’s father? Mr. I Will Publish Each Single Unknown Author That Provides Me Experimental Enough Novels With My Small Publishing House While I Try To Fight Capitalism From The Inside? That one?”

“That one,” she nods, falling down next to him. “He was at the shop today and apparently he knows people who know people and so on and he had tickets for this music festival they’re putting on upstate. It’s from the 15th to the 17th and he bought a bunch of them because he wants them to have support and shit.”

“Really. Who’s coming?”

“They’re still making deals apparently, but he said they called Dylan, Baez, Jimi Hendrix, CCR and a bunch of other people. Wait, CCR apparently are booked for sure. He had no idea if they would actually pull it off but then Asha told him it was your birthday and he insisted to give me two tickets. You fancy going upstate in a week?”

“You know what,” he says, “even if they only find crappy musicians right now a concert in a field upstate sounds heavenly. I’ll tell Connington I’m taking a week off.”

“Good,” she says, leaning closer. “After all, we haven’t taken a single day of vacation since we came here. We earned it, didn’t we?”

“Sure as hell we did,” he agrees, and kisses her back.

He’s definitely going to thank Oberyn for sparing him from dying of heat on his damned thirty-fifth birthday. And even if the concert is a bust, at least they’ll have gone outside the city and breathed some fresh air.

Sounds like a plan.

**August 1969, take two**

Brienne thinks she’s been awake for at least some twenty hours by now. Maybe. She has no idea — she _did_ sleep a bit on the 15th, after Joan Baez sang, and some more in the morning before music started for the day but from then on — it’s kind of a blur.

Not the music. Certainly not _that_.

Fuck, she _is_ uttermost glad that Oberyn wasn’t joking about CCR being there. She _loves_ CCR.

It’s _probably_ having something to do with the fact that the girl next to the two of them is freely sharing weed with their entire part of the field and Brienne never really was into drugs, and neither was Jaime, and she thinks she’s never going to have any again after this is over, but —

But the girl was nice, she figured that it was the one time she actually tried it out and saw what the fuss was about, they’ve been here almost two full days and it’s been so out of this world she can’t even begin to quantify it, Jaime’s taken off his shirt a hell of a long time ago and she hasn’t managed to keep her hands off him since they went to the lake to take a dip with — a _lot_ of other people, someone handed the both of them flower crowns and weed is hardly _heroin_ and so they accepted it just for kicks and she found out that weed makes her _giddy_ and makes Jaime even _giddier_ and so when the girl offered some more they took it, and now CCR are singing _Proud Mary_ as Jaime’s tongue slips inside her mouth and coming here sounds like the best idea they’ve ever had.

Also, it’s been the 17th for about half an hour. Which means —

“Fuck,” Jaime says as she moves a hand inside his jeans and starts jerking him off for — she doesn’t know how many times she did it today, but it was a _lot_ , and considering that _everyone_ around them has fucked or traded hand jobs or _whatever_ at this point, she lost her taste for shyness a long time ago, “happy fucking birthday to me.”

She laughs into his mouth, and everything smells like weed and the night’s breeze is chilly enough to make the heat bearable and apparently there’s no pause with the music until morning or so they were told, and it doesn’t feel daunting _at all_.

“Totally,” Brienne agrees, “and I’m nowhere near done.”

“Good,” Jaime moans, grasping at her shoulders and moving closer and _closer_.

“Come on,” she says, “we have the entire day before it’s over. How do you want to celebrate?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he blurts as she jerks him off faster and faster and _faster_ —, “you can keep on doing this,” he manages, and she does until he spills against her hand and she licks it clean without even thinking on it, and he moans _again_ —

“Hey,” she goes on, “honest. I can’t just jerk you off until tomorrow now, can I?”

“Then how about you fuck me as many times as we can physically manage?”

She thinks she might have come just at _hearing_ that. She takes another drag from her half-smoked joint, then hands it to him.

“Gladly,” she says, and pushes him to the ground.

— —

By the time CCR are finished, she _has_ ridden him until he came again, and she thinks that was their last condom but honestly, who the fuck cares. They take a moment as Janis Joplin comes on stage because damn but she _does_ love her voice and so maybe she cries a bit when listening to _Summertime_ , but he kind of is, too, and then after she’s done she has him lean down against her for the entirety of the next act which is _good_ but she’s too buzzed to pay attention, and he immediately moans in agreement when she slips her hand inside his jeans again and draws it as long as she can, going slow, stopping so that doesn’t come when she feels like he’s about to, and _fuck,_ it might be a thing he wouldn’t be so good at if he hadn’t paid his bills for it for years but if she whispers _not yet_ in his ear then he’ll make a desperate sound but he _won’t_ come unless she’s teasing him exceedingly so. And — she knows they’re in _public_ and maybe she shouldn’t be so open about this but there’s another couple fucking next to them and the air is heavy with weed and she’s pretty sure the person on the other side is tripping on some mushrooms and no one cares about _them,_ so she leans down, her lips pressing to his ear.

“Good,” she says, “just hold on for a bit more. I want to try something.”

He nods, not even questioning it, and then he moans again when she moves her other hand around his neck, and of course she won’t do it here but then she presses lightly at its side and he feels how hard he is against her fingers and she starts jerking him off again —

“Now,” she whispers, and fuck but he spills against her hand at once and it’s the hottest thing she’s ever seen or at least now it feels like it is, and she holds him close as he does, her mouth meeting his, and by the time The Who are on stage they’ve gone back to the lake to wash some because they’re filthy, and they’ve gone back to their position hand in hand and they’re both laughing at each other like two damned teenagers and when the girl smiles and offers them more weed Brienne takes it and Jaime does as well and maybe they’re being reckless idiots but who cares when they’ll never most likely do this again and when it’s just three days and then they’re gone? For now, it has just made the both of them pretty sleepy as a side effect. They can handle it, she thinks.

“Hey,” he slurs against her mouth as she blows smoke inside it, his burned hand grasping at her naked hip, “can I —” He moves it in between the two of them, touching her leg.

“Of course,” she says, not even blinking, and she moans in delight as his scarred fingers work their way inside her, not that he finds it a hardship since she doesn’t think she _hasn’t_ been wet since this entire show started and they got swallowed by the insane amount of people who showed up. He brings her off slowly, taking his time, maybe a bit more tentatively than he used to but it’s fine because it feels good and she tells him, her hands going to his hair, and she tells him that he’s doing it just right and he loves how his fingers feel inside her and he needs them in deeper and so he shoves them further and she’s clenching around them with pleasure shaking her entire frame, and _oh_ , she’s sure something nosy’s going on in the stage’s direction but she always was more of a Zeppelin person than a Who person so she can concentrate on _this_ instead —

By the time she’s catching her breath and he is, too, and he’s joking that like this she’ll wear him out before noon.

“You asked, didn’t you?”

“I did,” he agrees, and takes the joint from her.

— —

By the time Jefferson Airplane come on stage, the sun is up in the sky, they haven’t smoked anything for a few hours but she still feels like she’s floating into thin air and he’s looking up at her adoringly in a way that would have made her feel self-conscious once, but she’s running on very little sleep and a lot of adrenaline and so is he even if none of them is _so_ out of it that they don’t know what they’re doing, and she’s riding him slowly as _don’t you want somebody to love_ blasts into the field and he arches up into her touch when her hands caress his face and hair and he’s inside her and they’re out of condoms and she should probably get off him just to be sure, but —

But _fuck it_ , she decides. He looks like he’s overtaken with bliss and they never — they never let it happen, and she kind of _wants_ to, and if she moved away now it would break the moment and _what’s the worst that could happen_ , a traitorous thought says, _being pregnant with_ his _baby_?

Somehow, that doesn’t sound like a bad prospect at all even if it’s not the right time and so she doesn’t move and she keeps on riding him until he’s spilling inside her as the music plays and she thinks that she already _has_ somebody to love, thank you very much, and then she’s clenching around him and floating in pleasure and she feels like laughing and so she _does_ and so does he as they kiss, and when they move apart he’s warm against her and his lips are just barely open and when she draws him close he about melts against her, and he comes out of it in time to belt along with _White Rabbit_ along with everyone else, and then it’s apparently over for the morning and the sun is high in the sky as they curl against each other on the dirty blanket on the ground.

“You tired?” She whispers.

“Nah,” he says, “I think I can stand you doing it _again_. But in a while.”

She nods and half-dozes while he sleeps fully, but that’s all right, she doesn’t feel like sleeping at all, she’ll crash later.

Much later.

— —

Turns out, by the time most of the people fled the field and Jimi Hendrix comes on stage on fucking _Monday Morning_ , they’ve fucked some fifteen more times and he came inside her at least six of them and they both feel like wrecks, but then he says that he’s _never_ going to top this one, when it comes to birthdays, and she agrees as they lean back and listen to the music, their hands still tangled together.

Fuck, she decides, it was _absolutely_ worth it.

**September 1969**

He knows something’s off when Brienne gets home an hour after the usual time.

He’s been starting to put textbooks together to see if he can get ahead with his reading _some_ before he inevitably falls behind, so he was thumbing through the first recommended one in the reading list, and then she comes back home looking — not _worried_.

Guarded, more than that.

“What’s wrong?” He asks, not beating around the bush.

“Well, it depends. I guess.” She sits on the sofa and he joins her, hoping it’s nothing _bad_ , hoping she hasn’t finally decided she can do better than him, even if she _could_ —

“On what?”

She opens her mouth, then closes it, then — “I threw up thrice in the last few days.”

“I noticed. But you said it was those clams you had —”

“I thought it was.” She breathes in. “Then I realized my period was being _very_ late. Then I had to throw up while I was working and during class in the afternoon, and so Asha told me to get Sarella and get a check-up. The good news are that I’m not sick or anything.”

“Right. And what are the _it depends_ news?”

She breathes in, again. Then looks at him, half-smiles. “Seems like your birthday was quite eventful, because — I’m pregnant.”

The moment she says it, he thinks he’s heard wrong. “You’re —”

Right. They _did_ spend that entire day fucking _without condoms_.

“ — Never mind,” he finishes, realizing that his heartbeat just sped up. And not just a fraction.

She’s _pregnant_ , for —

“And,” she goes on, her fingers finding his wrist, “I would really like to know _your_ opinion on the matter before… well. _Acting_ either way.”

For a moment, he’s about to answer _why would you ask_ me, then he realizes he’s a dumb as hell question, but —

He never quite got around to even _consider_ it for real. He knew he couldn’t have children with Cersei until he considered her his only other half, regardless of his own feelings about it either way, and after then, well, he had gone through _any_ length to avoid accidentally getting a customer pregnant, because _that_ would have not been a good thing under every sense of the word and sure as hell forcing anyone to get an abortion where they come from would have been an exceedingly bad idea —

So he just never did. He never once thought he _would_ have kids with anyone. Especially because _who_ would even want his? But —

Whenever he _did_ dare imagine that future with Brienne he thought he never would have, he _had_ indulged in more than a few fantasies where it wasn’t just the two of them, even if he’s pretty sure he’s no parenting material, not seeing where he comes from —

But —

He looks up at her. His throat feels constricted. “While I think we both know it’s hardly the ideal moment,” he says, “I — shit, my opinion is that I’ve never even considered it because it was such an outlandish option, I couldn’t even conceive I’d ever meet anyone who would _want_ that with me, but — I can’t say I never thought about it.”

She seems taken by surprise for a moment. “You… did?”

He shrugs. “Back home. Sometimes I would — picture the two of us in the future. I don’t know _where_ but we were together. And the times in which it felt best, indulging in that fantasy, I think… I felt like it was too much so I never dared looking into it, but we did share a house and we were never alone. Sometimes it was a girl and sometimes it was a boy and sometimes there were both, but in all of those… this is going to sound pathetic.”

“Go on,” she says, her voice choked.

“The girl had my eyes and the boy had yours,” he finally says, looking at her again. Just thinking about how much it hurt to picture all of that while knowing that he could never have it. “I want it,” he says, not even thinking about lying because _fuck_ but he does, “but only if you do. It’s _your_ body and it’s _your_ year going back to school and I couldn’t ask it of you just because I _do_ want it.”

She shakes her head. “Fuck, you’re — I can’t believe you sometimes. You know, I _did_ think about pulling out, I knew what the hell I was doing. And then I thought that having _your_ kid wasn’t the worst thing that could happen to me at all. It’s nine months from now which would give you more than enough time to finish that diploma or close to it, we _do_ have the money and the space and — it’d be in May, I guess. I can just do the heaviest classes in the winter and leave the easiest for then, your workplace is right _there_ so no one has to commute, we _could_ make it work.”

He’s halfway sure he’s about to hyperventilate.

But then he considers it.

She’s right — his final exam should be around early May or so he thinks. At worst he can bring the kid to work if they have no way to manage it. He’s pretty sure Asha wouldn’t make it a problem. And if anyone can handle a part-time job, classes and being pregnant at the same time it’d be Brienne, he’s pretty sure of _that_ , and they do have the space _and_ enough money as it is, and when she graduates and gets that teaching job she’s coveted this long it would definitely not be a problem whatsoever.

They could —

Shit, they _could_ —

He feels her fingertip wipe a tear from his face.

“Something wrong?” She asks, sounding concerned, and he shakes his head. It’s the contrary, actually, but —

“No,” he says. “I mean, you’re right. We _could_. Shit, I didn’t know I wanted it as much as I actually do, but — it’s just, you’ve seen where I come from. I barely remember my damned mother, you haven’t met my father but I think you know enough, and fine, I can handle _them_ , but — I don’t know if I wouldn’t —”

“Well, you know what you _don’t_ have to do, for one, which is more than a lot of people could say for themselves. I mean, I’m pretty sure that if you just decide to do the contrary of everything your damned father did you’d already be pretty far ahead. But — right, can you hear me out one moment?”

“Sure.”

“You know, you just talked about how _you_ might potentially fuck this kid up. Thing is, you’re not wondering how _I_ could do that.”

He doesn’t think he’s ever looked at her like she’s grown two heads, but he’s pretty sure he’s doing it now.

“… Excuse me,” he says, “you’re saying that _you_ would potentially fuck your kid up.”

“It’s not so outlandish as you’re making it sound.”

“And _how_ exactly?”

She shrugs, and for a moment he had hoped that she was pulling his leg, but — is she fucking _serious_?

“You don’t even know how many times I’ve heard that with the way I looked no one would ever want it with _me_. When I was in high school, I gave up on any girl but Sansa being friends with me when I got told that other than that, it was just a good thing all around because what if I _did_ have kids and they looked like _me_ and they’d have to spend their life with it? And I spent my time thinking of what would happen if I really had a girl with _my_ looks and the conclusion was that I couldn’t stomach the thought and told myself it was a good thing it was never going to happen. The only experience I have is with Sansa’s little brothers and her younger sister and let’s just say Arya is hardly typical. Who says _you_ would get it wrong and _I_ wouldn’t?”

Scratch that. She _means_ it. And it’s so colossally wrong he can’t even wrap his head around it, and he’s taken her hands in between his own before he’s thought about it, and he’s shaking his head trying to not erupt in strings of curses.

“Fuck that,” he says, “if you were surrounded by idiots it’s not your problem, it’s _theirs_. There’s nothing _inherently_ wrong with you, if it was a girl with your looks then I’m personally teaching her to clock in the face anyone who’d tell her such a thing, never mind that sure as hell _your_ looks are hardly a problem as far as I’m concerned. And maybe the fact that we’re freaking out about getting it wrong means that we might actually do better than we both think.” It feels weird to be the one saying it, but he can’t have her go around thinking _that_ , for fuck’s sake. “And I wouldn’t want children with anyone else. Deal with it.”

At this point she’s crying, too, but she’s also smiling tentatively as she moves forward and they kiss. “Okay,” she breathes against his mouth. “Okay, I — we can do it. Somehow. I might show up to volunteer a few times, though. For practice.”

“Won’t be me driving you away,” he smirks back, and then they’re kissing again and _they’re having a baby_ and he’s nowhere near ready for it, but —

But maybe he can be.

They _do_ have the next nine months to worry about it, don’t they?

**November 1969**

“Lannister,” Oberyn says, sounding outraged, “ _why_ didn’t you ever tell me?”

Brienne almost laughs at seeing _how_ exactly outraged he looks as Tyrion laughs himself to death against his glass of wine and Jaime seems desperate to look for a way out.

Rewind: Asha’s shop has been doing _really_ well, to the point that Brienne being there on part time isn’t enough anymore and while Asha is considering leaving the publishing job, too, she doesn’t want to give that contact up, and so she asked Brienne if she knew anyone else who might want to take her guest room and relieve the both of them.

Brienne, who remembered even too well from the last ten talks or so that she had with Tyrion that he’s growing sick of the damned place more than usual, and for that matter during the last time they spoke on the phone when they told him they were going to have a baby said that he wished he could blow that joint too because in between his father and sister it was turning out to be insufferable, had smirked and told her she _did_ know someone.

Tyrion, upon receiving the offer, had pretty much gifted Bronn the diner and showed up three days later, and he’s still in Asha’s guest room — _please never remind me that you two actually fucked in that bed, thank you —_ and has gotten along great with _all_ of her friends until now.

Which is why she ended up inviting most of them over for Thanksgiving, Oberyn included. And they’re all at their third glass of wine, which had resulted in Tyrion informing all of them that Jaime actually _did_ write poetry once upon a time.

“Because it’s not really great,” Jaime finally settles on, and then Tyrion’s eyes narrow.

“You said it _is_ ,” he deduces, “not that it _was_. Don’t tell me that —”

Jaime groans, obviously figuring that he’s never going to get the best of his brother on _this_ playing field. “Yes, _fine_ , I might have written a few others and _she_ knows where they are because otherwise I’d throw them in the fire, and no, it’s really not good.”

Oberyn turns to her, his dark eyes glinting. “And what do _you_ think about it?”

Brienne, who always was a shit liar, sends Jaime an apologetic look as her hand covers the slight swell of her stomach.

“I think it’s actually very good, but it’s _his_ decision to share it or not.” She kind of wishes he _would_ because maybe he’d just stop handing her pieces of paper without even wanting to look at them after, but she’s not going to force him into it.

Jaime doesn’t look at any of them for a moment, then shrugs. “Fuck it. Fine, you can show them. But really, it’s _bad_.”

“I’ll be the judge of it,” Oberyn says as Asha tells him to just stop putting himself down and muttering that she has her younger brother for her fill of it, and good thing he’s off to fashion school while sharing an apartment with Robb Stark somewhere in Maryland and he’s out of their damned hometown as well. Brienne stands up and goes to get her folder, which right now has some thirty pieces inside it regardless of how much Jaime insists he’s not _that_ invested in it, and hands it to Oberyn as she sits back down. Then she grabs Jaime’s right hand under the table as she can _feel_ it’s trembling as much as he’s making a show of not caring, and then she remembers that she had taken that page from the eight grade notebook with the poem and put it there so _that_ is with the others, too, but it’s too late to take it out.

It’s the first one Oberyn reads, obviously, and the way his eyes widen as he goes through it it, corrections and double evaluations and all, say all about what he thinks of that.

“You wrote _this_ when you were fourteen,” Oberyn says.

“Oh, shit, I didn’t realize _that_ one was — whatever. Yeah. I did.”

“Holy fucking — who the _hell_ was your teacher?” He’s sounding honestly outraged and Brienne can only think, _finally someone else is telling him_.

“He’s still there, I think,” Jaime shrugs. “Mr. Darry, I don’t think he ever let us use his first name. Why?”

“Because he’s a complete fucking idiot and your girlfriend over there has the damn right of it.”

“… Sorry?”

“Seriously? If you fix the spelling — but she’s right, it doesn’t matter — it’s… _really damn good_. And who the fuck reads this and thinks that the problem is that you didn’t write a _sonnet_? Fuck, then we wonder why we’re raising generations without a shred of imagination,” he shakes his head, and then reads the one below, and then the next, and it is kind of hilarious to see his face become _more_ impressed with each passing piece while Jaime just looks like he’s not making sense of this entire situation.

By the time he’s read the last one, Oberyn is shaking his head and muttering about wasted talent under his breath, then looks up at Jaime again. _Very_ seriously.

“You _do_ know that among all the things I do in my life there is running that poetry magazine, don’t you?” Right. He owns a small publishing house that also issues one, and he has friends all over the country so while he can’t publish the magazine properly outside the state of New York, he sends them copies so they can be sold in their shops, too, which means that anyone getting published on it has decent visibility in New York and limited outside it, but still, nothing to look down upon.

“Yeah,” Jaime says, “and…?”

“And I have four empty spots for the next issue and I wanted them to be someone unpublished,” he says, sounding extremely serious about it.

Jaime quite literally _gapes_.

“You’re _not_ telling me that you want to publish them.”

“I’m telling you that it’s exactly what I want to do, and if you don’t feel comfortable with four of them _fine_ but I want the first one for it.”

“Oberyn, you’re — you’re telling me you want to publish a damned poem I wrote in _eight grade_ that was graded fucking F?”

“By an idiot who can’t see potential if it hits him in the face? Sure as hell I do, never mind that the second evaluation is a lot more honest than the first. And I have the last word on what gets printed.”

Jaime just — _stares_ at him as he obviously takes in that he means it.

“Just — you’d want _that_ one,” he repeats.

“It’s that good, yes. But if you wanted to give me three others, you can have your pick.”

Jaime seems to think about it.

Then he shrugs. “Fine,” he says, “your funeral. But _she_ picks the other three, I don’t know if I wouldn’t throw the others out if I read them another time.”

Oberyn raises an eyebrow, but then turns to look at her. “Well then,” he says, “what would you recommend?”

Brienne, who has re-read those poems _way_ more than once, immediately hands him over the first that he wrote a few months ago, then tells him she needs to think about it and scans the rest again. She eventually chooses two others that are a bit less personal just because she has a feeling Jaime is getting more than a bit overwhelmed and those poems _do_ say a lot if you can read them, and maybe it should be up to him to decide whether he wants to disclose the rest with others.

“Perfect,” Oberyn grins. “By the way, it’s a paid job. I’ll get you a check soon.”

“Wait, you’d even _pay_ me for —”

“Obviously,” Oberyn says. “This country is founded on shrewd capitalism but I don’t have to roll with it. Of course I pay the people I publish. I’ll give you the originals back in a week at most.”

Jaime nods, and no one says anything when he downs another full glass of wine.

Tyrion just looks _extremely_ proud of having somehow arranged the entire thing.

Brienne won’t be the one telling him off for it.

— —

That evening, he goes to bed before her — she volunteers to finish up the dishes and hands Pod some of the leftovers when he knocks on the window as soon as the group home celebrations are over, then she changes into a pair of pjs and finds him squinting his eyes at one of his textbooks. She gets into bed and takes it out of his hands, putting it on her nightstand.

“You’re not behind with that reading,” she says, “you can afford to slack off for one day.”

“Fine, fine,” he replies, turning against the arm she put around his shoulders, his hand brushing over the curve of her stomach al over again before he drops it to her hip. “Shit, I can’t believe he’s doing that.”

“I can,” she immediately says. “I’ve been telling you for years, haven’t I?”

He shrugs, his head falling to her shoulder. “You did,” he says. “It’s just — it feels absurd.”

“It won’t _after_ ,” she says, turning off the light and settling against him.

She’s pretty damn sure of it.

— —

A week later, Asha gives her a couple of envelopes from Oberyn as she smirks too widely for Brienne’s tastes. She keeps the one with the originals of the poems but she doesn’t open the second — she gives it to Jaime later, and he opens it to find a check for two hundred and forty dollars inside it. He gapes at it.

“Does he _seriously_ think each of those poems is worth _sixty_?” He asks, sounding like he can’t fucking believe it.

“He paid you, didn’t he?” She winks at him, and a month later Tyrion shows up with a copy of the magazine.

All four of those poems are neatly printed alongside each other.

“I brought wine,” Tyrion says as Jaime keeps on gaping at the page. Brienne skips on it and lets them share the bottle while smiling to herself as she revises the material for her Shakespearean theater class. Tyrion ends up crashing on the sofa and they end up in bed way later than usual, and of course Jaime’s way beyond tipsy even if he’s not _completely_ drunk, but still, they did share half a bottle between them.

Which means that since he’s the _clingy_ kind of drunk, he’s wrapped around her _tightly_ the moment they’re under the covers, not that she minds.

“Fucking hell,” he slurs, “I can’t fucking believe he fucking went and fucking published that stuff.”

“I can,” she says, “because _that stuff_ is pretty damned good and you deserved it and you really need to stop putting yourself down.”

He sniffs against her neck and says nothing.

She runs a hand through his hair and doesn’t repeat it, but he hasn’t tried to argue back, and he _would_ have a year ago, regardless of being sober or not.

It’s progress, after all.

**February 1970**

In retrospective, maybe he should have skipped on the damned thing.

Except that when he told Brienne that some stuck-up former classmate of his _tracked him down especially for their high school reunion with teachers_ just to tell him he absolutely had to come, while somehow gloating as he did, Brienne shrugged and told him that she was entirely willing to go with him if he wanted to. Then her eyes had narrowed.

“Wait, would your eight grade teacher be there?”

“Mr. Darry? Yeah,” Jaime says. “He definitely was mentioned. Why?”

“Well, if you want to go,” she had said, smiling in a way that he hopes is never directed at _him_ , “I’m absolutely down to come with you. Actually, I’d _love_ it.”

He had thought about it. He’s one hundred percent sure that whichever of his classmates put this together invited him just so that they could gloat at the fact that all of them are swimming in money while _he_ isn’t when he should have had more than all of them combined, and all of them knew he fucked people to pay the bills for years. He was this tempted to say no, also because he doesn’t miss their hometown and he’d be glad never seeing it again.

Still —

Still, he kind of _did_ want to show them that maybe he doesn’t have that much money to his name and he _has_ fucked people for a living and everything — and now he’s probably happier than most of them. Fine, they have to save and they’ll have to make it work when the baby is born and he’s losing sleep over not falling behind with everyone else in his course, but he hasn’t done that yet, he’s actually keeping up pretty damn decently, the moment any of the kids at the group home that he has to look over learned that _he_ was applying for that job they said he’d be a _lot_ better at it than anyone else already working there, Tully’s current opinion on how he’s managing his darned baggage is that he has _fucking issues_ but he’s working on them so as long as he doesn’t quit midway he’ll be fine eventually. He — he’s maybe landing a job he would love to have, he’s about to have a baby with a woman he loves more than he thought he could love anyone, he’s actually sure that in his entire life there was never such a continuous span of time in which he was doing as well as he is right now, and so who gives a fuck about the money?

He kind of wanted to show them that he’s _not_ miserable nor he’s thrown his life away, and so he said he’d go.

He has regretted it the moment they both walked inside his former school — it’s still too large, still looming, still sparkly clean everywhere because people could get a suspension for putting stickers on their damned lockers, and he _hates_ walking back through its walls covered in trophies won by some four generations of extremely rich pupils.

He’s just glad Cersei’s apparently not here because she was busy with work or _something_. The last thing he needed was seeing _her_.

Everyone else is wearing brand new suits that he thinks must have cost his entire paycheck, _at least_. He’s come with dark jeans, heavy boots and that leather jacket Brienne usually wears, but she had told him he could have it, she had other plans.

The only reason he’s _not_ regretting having come here is that Brienne has apparently stopped giving a fuck about pretty much anything and is making everyone uncomfortable on purpose — she showed up with a warm woolen winter dress, blue with pink embroideries, that some other friend of Asha’s who sells hand-knitted clothing on the side sold her at Christmas. Said dress falls on her perfectly _and_ shows the round curve of her abdomen entirely too well, and she’s had him style her hair which is long enough for that French braid now, and she didn’t let him do her make-up but did an admirable job with it herself, and whenever any of his classmates’s wives tries to make her feel out of place, she smirks at them, puts an arm around his waist, drops some kind of innuendo and makes them terribly embarrassed, and _that_ is a show Jaime can’t fucking get enough of. Maybe they’ll never invite him again after this. Good because just setting foot back in this damned place was enough to make him feel sick.

Also, he can’t fucking believe that he’s ended up cornered by that asshole Taena Merryweather who is _still_ friends with Cersei and who is here for _her_ class’s reunion while Brienne was in the bathroom and he can’t just throw his champagne in her face.

“I hadn’t thought you’d come alone?” She asks. She sounds like a snake.

“My girlfriend’s just gone to the bathroom,” he says, not bothering with pleasantries. “She’ll be back soon.”

“Oh, _girlfriend_?” She tuts. “No nuptials on the horizon?”

Oh, _fuck her_. They haven’t brought it up yet, but honestly, neither of them cares for it as a thing and it looked like too much effort for the moment, but now Taena’s looking at him as if it’s some kind of proof he’s doing this wrong and he just really wants her to go.

“We haven’t discussed it,” he finally says. “But I’m not ruling it out and neither is she.”

“Are you sure you’re doing fine? That jacket doesn’t seem to fit.”

“It’s hers,” he shrugs. “I like it this way. And I’m doing better than ever. Honestly.”

“Forgive me if you don’t sound too convinced,” she smiles, and he wants to ask _and what would you know_ —

“Sorry it took me so long, the wait was endless,” Brienne says, sliding next to him, and he breathes in relief as she does. Taena’s eyes widen as she takes in that she’s almost six months along and _not_ dressed like her usual. “And you would be?”

Taena introduces herself, fairly reluctantly. Then she makes a bit of small talk, and then —

“I don’t see any rings,” she asks with a fake innocent voice. “Did he _really_ get you pregnant without —”

“Excuse me,” Brienne interrupts her, “ _he_ didn’t get me anything, it happened with the both of us knowing what we were doing. And I don’t think we even considered it because it didn’t cross our minds, but no one’s saying we _have_ to get married or anything. It’s the beauty of not living in a small town where everyone will judge you for it. Anyway, no one’s forced me into anything and I’m quite hungry. Do you think we could grab a bite?”

“Absolutely,” he says, fleeing the scene and thanking her for the save. She tells him she’s having a _lot_ of fun and she can’t wait for the actual dinner.

Jaime doesn’t know if he should be terrified or not.

— —

He doesn’t know if it’s a coincidence or not — most likely not —, but they end up sitting _right_ in front of Mr. Darry.

Jaime is _absolutely_ sure it happened on purpose, but the moment he introduces himself to Brienne with a detached look, he can see her eyes glinting.

He doesn’t know what the hell she has cooked up, but he figures he’ll eat the duck confit for now. Who the fuck even offers duck confit at a _high school reunion_? He supposes it has to be the norm for _this_ kind of place.

Mr. Darry only glances at him in half-distaste, not that Jaime had expected any less. He starts talking to Petyr Baelish at once, and of course he does, _he_ always got straight As even if Jaime is halfway sure part of it was because of all the ass kissing Baelish did with each single teacher of theirs. Then at some point in between courses Brienne starts talking to him about how she’s liking this semester’s classes on American poetry and how she thinks he would _love_ the Black Mountain poets and she should totally hand him some of her textbooks after she’s finished.

At that, Mr. Darry glances up at them.

“Lannister,” he says, “I didn’t know that your girlfriend was… into literature.”

“Oh,” she says, “I’ve just finished my first semester. I aim for teaching high school as soon as I’m done. It always was what I wanted to do.” She pauses, takes a sip of water. “It’s been going pretty well.”

“Best luck then,” Mr. Darry says diplomatically. He seems fairly surprised at the exchange, but to his credit he hasn’t made fun of her for it… yet. “So, you’re into… _modern_ poetry?”

“Oh, I always enjoy a good poem from whichever period,” she smiles, “but if I run into some that I know he might like, I take care to tell him.”

Mr. Darry’s eyes go wide as saucers. Jaime suddenly realizes _why_ Brienne insisted to bring with a medium-sized bag and didn’t leave it in the cloakroom. “Huh,” he says. “Lannister, you weren’t really interested in poetry back in the day.”

Jaime shrugs. “Well, it’s been a long time. Interests develop.”

“Oh, don’t be shy _now_ when you never were,” Brienne goes on, and suddenly that entire area of the table is looking at them.

“What — in what sense?” Baelish asks, sounding like he’s sure he heard wrong.

“He doesn’t parade it around,” she smirks, “but he actually does write some from time to time.”

“ _You_ write poetry?” Baelish half-laughs.

Jaime smirks back, realizing exactly what it is that she’s aiming at and what she’s about to do. “Well, it’s good enough I paid for a new table with it.”

Mr. Darry opens his mouth. “You… paid for a new table with it?”

“He didn’t say before?” Brienne grins, producing her copy of the magazine. “He got some of those poems published a few months ago. Here, you want to look?”

Mr. Darry, to his credit, pulls a straight face as he says of course and takes the magazine, looking for the poems in question. Anyone on their side of the table is staring at the both of them like they _both_ grew two heads, but Jaime is just paying attention to the scene in front of him as he finally finds those four poems and sees _that_ one in the first page.

Admittedly, Jaime takes great, great joy in seeing the man’s face pale at once as he realizes exactly _what_ the first poem is.

“Oh,” he says, closing it and handing it back. “That’s — impressive.” He sounds like he just swallowed a lemon.

“Thanks,” Jaime smirks back, and he doesn’t know when the last time he felt this confident was, but — _fuck_ , he thinks he’s enjoying the shit out of it. “Honest, I mostly write them for myself, but it was a fortunate development.” He drinks some of his wine. “Who knows, I might send in some more.”

And thing is — he could have lied about it.

Except that he finds out that _he’s not_ as he speaks.

He — he actually might, just because he’s kind of feeling glee at the sight of each single person around here who would always get A-graded homework staring at him as if they can’t conceive that _he_ actually published anything.

Well, _fuck them_ , he thinks, and wonders if he should actually send his father a copy.

Maybe he will.

Maybe he just fucking will.

— —

By the time the entire farce is over, they’re sitting in the car and he’s crying for how hard he’s laughing, and Brienne, too, except that she’s not even tipsy so she doesn’t have _that_ excuse.

“Fuck,” he wheezes, “their damned _faces_ , I just — fuck, you were right. We totally should have come.”

“I told you,” she says in between giggles, “it was _priceless_. Shit, what a bunch of assholes. You know what, I’m really fucking glad we hightailed out of Dodge.”

“Yeah,” he says, meaning it, “me, too. Fuck, if I think I spent twenty years thinking I was a lost cause because of _them_ , too, I just —”

“Well, at least you _did_ get it. Do you still need me to _not_ tell you where I keep those poems?”

“Maybe not,” he says, “but I think I still want you to keep it to yourself. For now.”

“Fair,” she replies, squeezing his hand, and then, “so, are we driving back home?”

“Fuck, _yes_ ,” he says as she starts the car, and maybe before the baby is born he _should_ get a license as well because it’s ridiculous that she’s the only one out of them that can drive, but —

They can think about it when they’re home.

**April 1970**

“You know that we _do_ have to choose a name,” Brienne tells him as she lies down on the sofa. She has her French literature notes on the side and she’s lying up with her back on the sofa’s armrest and as much as she _does_ smile when she feels the baby kicking, she kind of can’t wait for next month to arrive already because she’s _tired_ of continuously having to go to the bathroom and not standing as much as she’d like.

Jaime looks up from his notes, carefully typed after summarizing most of his textbooks — she helped him for the ones that he said had fonts so tiny he’d get a headache trying to figure them out and now it’s two weeks to his final exam and he only revises on them. She’s pretty sure they’re underlined to hell and back. He’s still freaking out about not passing, even if when both she and Pod quizzed him for two full hours last week he got maybe three questions wrong overall.

He stands up, putting the notes on the side and sitting down on a chair, pulling it next to the sofa. “We should,” he agrees. They haven’t had the discussion yet, but it never came up, except that now it’s a month left or so, and the reality of it is — well. Hitting her in the face for the umpteenth time. Good thing that Sarella promised them to get her in her hospital for free when it’s time.

“So,” she starts when he won’t, “if it’s a boy —”

“We’re _not_ naming him like my father. And like _hell_ I want a kid with a _junior_ past his name.”

She nods, figuring he has all the reasons for it. “That’s when I tell you that my father said he never was too fond of _his_ name so I shouldn’t pass it on to eventual male kids.”

“Fuck, I thought it’d have been the perfect solution,” Jaime half-laughs, and she kind of agrees, but she’s not going to do that anyway if her father himself _doesn’t_ want that.

“I know,” she sighs. “Well, this baby _was_ most likely conceived while we were listening to CCR.”

“Yeah, _or_ the Who, _or_ Jefferson Airplane, and sorry but John is _really_ basic _and_ I don’t care about the Who enough to name anyone after any of them.”

“Fair as well,” she sighs. “Fuck, we’re terrible at this naming business, aren’t we?”

“Maybe we should just pick one we both like instead of wondering who we should name him after? Or her.”

“ _Is_ there a name you’d like? Because truth to be told, I never thought I had any so I didn’t spend my time wondering how I’d name my future children.”

“Why, do you think _I_ did? Anyway, no C-names.”

She doesn’t tell him to expand on that. She can guess why. “I suppose that for a girl —”

“We’re _not_ calling her like my mother either. I mean, I barely even remember her.”

“Right. Well, I haven’t even _met_ mine. Hey, maybe if you want to pay homage to our history, if it’s a girl we should just name her Dallas and be done with it,” she says, and then she bursts out laughing at the face he makes.

“Like _hell_ ,” he proclaims, “I’m naming her _Dallas_ , do you hate your future offspring that much?”

“I was joking,” she defends herself, “but fine. No Dallas. No one male from that movie either, I guess.”

“Please no,” Jaime agrees. Then he goes quiet for a moment, then he turns at her. “Uh, well. That book you gave me back in the day. Not _Cannery Row_. The sequel.”

“ _Sweet Thursday_?” Of course she remembers it. It was the one where everyone in Cannery Row went above and beyond to make sure the protagonist from _that_ book got his head out of his ass and realized it was in love with one of the girls working in the local brothel, which back in the day she had given him when they had been seeing each other for maybe a month and something and she had felt bold and she had thought he _would_ like to read that kind of story. “Sure I do,” she says, her voice betraying how fond she’s feeling.

“Well. Uh, the girl that ran off with the main guy at the end.”

“Suzy?”

“Yeah. That’s… nice, I think?” He shrugs. “I mean, it’s not just about — the context. But I thought it was a pretty name back in the day.”

Brienne thinks about it. He’s right. It _is_ pretty. It’s short, it sounds nice and no one they know is named like that.

“I think that works,” she says. “I like it.”

“Do you,” he says, sounding very pleased that she’s into his suggestion.

“Yeah,” she nods. “Suzy’s good. Now, _if_ it’s a girl we’re set. If it’s a boy, we’re back to square one.”

“Can we just hope it’s a girl and be done with it? I have a feeling it is anyway.”

“Come on, if we give up at _this_ then — _oh_.”

“What? You’ve got a moment of enlightenment?”

She smiles. “Maybe. I mean, I think you should have thought about it first but you know, Holden’s _not_ so bad.”

He stops, considers it, and then he looks at her with a softness in his eyes that almost makes her lose a few heartbeats.

“I think I like it,” he says, but he needs to clear his throat twice before doing it. His fingers find hers, squeezing them, and — yeah. She _does_ like both options. Very much.

She hasn’t told him yet that these days, if she thinks about the chances of having a girl who might look like her, it doesn’t feel so daunting anymore.

**May 1970**

“Jaime, you know that pacing will _not_ speed things up?” Tyrion asks, rolling his eyes as _he_ sits on the hospital chair.

Jaime ignores him and keeps on pacing.

“She’s been in there for _hours_ ,” he sighs, “and they haven’t let me in even if I wanted to be, so I’ll pace as much as I want, thank you very much.”

“Well, no one’s come out to tell you anything went wrong, so how about you calm your shit down? Your friend’s good and all this going up and down is making my head spin.”

He sighs, drops down sitting next to his brother and puts his head in his hands, breathing in and out. Fuck. It’s been what, six hours. He’s called Brienne’s father who said he’d be here with his soon-to-be-bride as soon as he could manage, he’s called Asha who joked about not wanting to miss on her future nephew’s birth, because _right_ , they’re about to become stepsisters and doesn’t that feel weird, but Brienne’s contractions started at nine AM and so none of them could get here yet, which means he’s been on his own with Tyrion since he got here and he’s at his fifth coffee and he’s about to lose his shit. But the last time he tried to ask a nurse she about shot him down in a second, and so he’s not even trying.

“I know,” he says, “it’s just — the wait is killing me, all right?”

“Well then, if you wanted a distraction I can give you a bunch of potentially hilarious news from our illustrious father.”

“… What? He talked to you?”

“I didn’t tell you because I figured you wouldn’t need distractions or shit, but yes, he did, recently, and it was… honestly a trip.”

“Entertain me,” Jaime says.

“First he informs me that whoever he placed on your detail told him that you’re fresh out of qualifying social work diploma and he asks me if you lost your damned mind. I told him that it seemed to me like you knew exactly what you were doing and that you’re nowhere near as stupid as he assumed if it’s about shit you care for and that it seemed to me social work was miles better than your previous field.”

“No one’s surprised,” Jaime snorts. “Anything that _might_ feel like news?”

“Well, he seethed some and then went on asking me if it was true you were having children with _her_ , and I said that you were, and he sounded like he was fishing around to be involved with you again because you know, _Lannister_ -named children. I told him that most likely you’d tell him to fuck off.”

“Please,” Jaime laughs, “like _hell_ he’s coming close to any child I’ll have in my entire life. He took it badly, I suppose.”

“Very much,” Tyrion says, “but I endured because I felt like it wasn’t over, and then it turns out that Sansa Stark and Sandor Clegane _finally_ went public with the fact that they’re dating. In town, at least.”

 _Right_ — he knew and Brienne knew, those two apparently stayed in contact after seeing them off and things happened but they took it extremely slow for obvious reasons, and honestly, he’s glad for the both of them, though more for Sandor, but — well, shit, they _did_ not so casually fuck for years and he’s known the guy’s issues since then, obviously he’ll be glad if he doesn’t have to resort to _him_ to get someone to treat him like a damned human being.

“Yes, and?”

“And, obviously she brought him that magazine of Oberyn’s, a couple of copies, and Bronn found it hilarious and he hung those poems in the diner.”

Jaime about falls off the chair. “What the _fuck_ ,” he says.

“Neither of us is there to stop him, right? Anyway, obviously someone read them which means that Father read them and Cersei did, too, and he went on a rant about how _ridiculous_ they were and what the fuck is your problem and so on, I told him that he should be able to realize it just reading them and that it was no point denying the cigarettes thing, but like… the very small part of town which is not _that_ fucking terrible has caught on what went on and neither of them is too happy about it.”

Jaime doesn’t know if he should laugh, cry, both or — _whatever_. “And what do they want to do about it?”

“Nothing,” Tyrion says, “but if you ever publish an entire collection do it under your real name and tear them apart. It should be lovely to witness.”

He snorts. “Maybe,” he says, thinking that he _does_ have enough of the damned things for one, but — he’s not going to push it right now. Maybe in a year or so. “Jesus, I can’t believe he didn’t _get it_ even if I can believe he only cares for the family legacy.”

“Well, you can hope it’s a girl. Maybe since she wouldn’t pass on the family name he’d leave you alone.”

Jaime, who has had the distinct feeling that it _will_ be a girl for a while, nods and says nothing.

“You know,” he says, “I just — sometimes I think that I threw a good part of my life away for _them_ and — before, I thought I kind of deserved it. I mean, I should have figured it out and so on.”

“And now?”

It took a while to admit it to himself. A while and a lot of free therapy that he’s nowhere near done with. “Now — I’m just sad I did, I guess. But I know I didn’t deserve it.”

“It was about fucking time,” Tyrion says, but before Jaime can answer a nurse shows up and tells him that he should come over.

“Will you tell the others —” He starts.

“Yeah, yeah, just go. They know me, after all.”

He nods and follows the nurse upstairs — she assures him that while it was _long_ everything went fine and both Brienne and the baby are fine and she’s not telling him anything else because Brienne told them not to, and then she stops in front of a room and tells him to go inside. His hand is shaking, he realizes as he pushes the handle down, but maybe it’s the five coffees.

Or maybe not.

He walks inside the room. Brienne is sitting on the bed, looking like she could sleep for the next ten years, the sheet coming up to her chest, where she’s holding —

“Oh, here you are,” she says, looking from the baby to him. She looks tired as hell, but her eyes are shining in happiness and she’s smiling so, so sweetly. “Get here already.”

He does, dropping on the nearest chair and looking down with her, and —

“Told you it was a girl,” he says, trying to keep his voice even as he finally sees his daughter, and — she has _his_ hair, but she’s also damn large for being a newborn. He has a feeling _that_ is all Brienne. She has her eyes closed, but then Brienne half-smiles and hands her over to him and he thanks the fact that he’s spent the last months handling kids that were as young as three years old because at least instincts takes over and he doesn’t drop her for how much his fingers were shaking before. Being moved, though, makes her open her eyes, and —

He _has_ to laugh.

“Shit,” he says, “we spend months arguing about the damned eye color we wanted her to have and _that_ is what we get for it?”

“I feel like it’s the universe telling us to never waste time with something that dumb ever again,” Brienne replies, and — yeah. Well. They _did_ spend months discussing that because he said he hoped the kid would have _her_ eyes while she said that no, she wanted them to have _his_.

It’s fucking _neither_ — it’s a damned midway because they’re blue but warmer than Brienne’s, with green undertones bordering on turquoise, and right, after all as much as Jaime barely remembers his mother he does recall that she had blue-ish eyes, and Brienne’s father has a shade slightly warmer than hers, so she most likely bypassed _both_ of them or something.

It’s — it’s a beautiful shade, though.

 _She_ is beautiful, and if he thinks that three years ago at this time he was most likely putting ice on bruises, looking at his planner with despair and hating his entire existence, he can’t fucking believe _this_ is his life now.

But —

“You know what,” he says, “if we’re ever back in town I’m sending your teammates a fruit basket.”

“You can just come with me at the next high school reunion for that,” she laughs, dropping back against the pillows. “And why’s that?” She obviously already knows the answer, from the way she’s looking at him.

“Because if they hadn’t been assholes you’d have never thought to show up at _my_ place and I’d be still there feeling sorry for myself,” he says, and she _does_ laugh again, her hand going to his elbow.

“Listen,” she says, “I could say the same because then I might be still there selling books or I might be here but I’d be on my own and it would have been entirely worse, but — I think you’d have gotten there anyway, you know.”

“I have my doubts, but since I doubt we’ll ever agree on it, how about we drop it forever?”

“Deal,” she says, her mouth finding his for a moment, and —

Fuck.

It’s strange, he thinks, how many types of happiness you can end up tasting after you spend your life thinking you’ll never get as far as having _one_ of them.

But he thinks that there’s nothing better than realizing how _wrong_ he used to be when he thought his life had been over the moment he closed the manor’s door behind his back.

**July 1975**

“Well, _shit_ ,” Jaime says, “I think I understand a lot of things now.”

“Like what?” Brienne moves closer to him, her elbow meeting his arm. “Why Steinbeck _really_ liked this place?”

“Do you see anything wrong with it?” Jaime retorts with a smirk, and — fine. The sea is as clear blue as she had imagined it reading the man’s books, the Salinas Valley is as rich and bright and covered in flowers as she had pictured it during the cold winters back home, the weather is just plain _lovely_ , warm but not exceedingly hot.

“Point taken,” she agrees. “Hey, we don’t have to be on the road for another two days tops, at least. I mean, San Francisco is a three hour drive from here if we’re unlucky. If you want to find a hotel and spend a couple of days here, nothing’s stopping us.”

He seems to consider it — it wouldn’t change things for her either way, but after all _he_ ’s the reason why they’re in California in the first place.

Rewind: took him _months_ and Oberyn publishing more of the poems on his magazine _and_ telling him that with he was looking to branch out with his publishing house and so on to convince him, but he _did_ eventually give Oberyn the entire collection he had and published it a few months ago.

It hasn’t been a smashing literary success, _but_ it got pretty damn good reviews from the specialized magazines _and_ it sold enough that Oberyn is implying that he’s absolutely going to publish another if he gets enough poems to get it going. _And_ , they invited Jaime to this poetry festival in San Francisco and he was pretty sure it was a joke when he got the letter, but when it turned out it wasn’t, he spent some three hours taking a walk somewhere at two AM before coming back just before dawn and asking her if she felt like a road trip.

“How convenient,” she had told him, “my father just said they can’t wait to keep the kids for the holidays.”

( _Her father and formerly-Miss-Harlaw-now-Tarth moved in the next town over together a few years ago and they’re always exceedingly glad to keep both Suzy_ and _Pod — a few years ago Brienne had made Jaime notice that by now the kid spent more time in their living room keeping an eye on their daughter than in the damned group home and they both helped him with his homework daily and he showed up at their place for anything, they might as well make it official. Jaime had looked at her like he had just realized the obvious, then asked for the case to be transferred to him and that was the end of it. Jon Connington_ still _laughs about it to the day._ )

“Then I think we should go,” he had said, and she hadn’t even thought about _not_ going — after all, _she_ is on holiday as schools are closed for the summer, and maybe she can find some more new poetry to throw at her students just to see if any of them actually bites and stops sticking to their textbook. They loaded the car with the bare minimum, left the kids in Jersey with promises to come back with a _lot_ of souvenirs, made plans to meet over there with both Sansa and Sandor, who have _both_ moved there a couple of years ago and Brienne still can’t get over the fact that they met _while seeing the two of them off,_ and then they drove off to California.

And now they’re in Monterey because they decided to pass from there and Jaime looks absolutely enamored with the place, but she thinks she also feels the same way. How could you not after reading about it so many times and finding out it’s exactly like _that_?

“You know what,” he says, “we aren’t even paying for accommodation over there, we _can_ stay for a bit.”

“Good,” she replies, pleased to hear it and also guessing that he’s not really in a hurry to go anywhere yet. “But maybe we shouldn’t go find a motel yet?”

“Actually —” he says, half-smiling, and she thinks there’s a hint of nervousness in his tone, but before she can ask, he slips a hand inside his jeans jacket’s pocket. “We shouldn’t, but it’s because I think I’ve got something to ask you.”

“All right.”

He takes his hand out and —

Oh.

There’s a folded piece of paper in between his still-burned fingers — the scars faded, some, but they’re still red and rough, not that she ever gave a damn.

She takes it, opening it slowly.

It’s handwritten, with care. She reads it.

And —

_3._

_There is something about Death_

_Like love itself!_

_If with some one with whom you have known passion,_

_And the glow of youthful love,_

_You also, after years of life_

_Together, feel the sinking of the fire,_

_And thus fade away together,_

_Gradually, faintly, delicately,_

_As it were in each other’s arms,_

_Passing from the familiar room —_

_That is a power of unison between souls_

_Like love itself!_

and then at the end —

_That’s how I’d like it to be eventually._

She reads it once.

Then again.

She’s pretty sure that the noise she makes is someway in between delighted and surprised, even if all things considered she shouldn’t feel surprised _at all_ , unless she understood wrong.

But she doesn’t think she did.

She looks up from the piece of paper to Jaime, who’s looking half-smug and half-embarrassed. “I know it’s kind of morbid,” he shrugs, “but that’s how we started it, I figured it was only appropriate.”

“Fuck, I — you _seriously_ — I was going to say I couldn’t believe it, but actually I _can_ believe it. Entirely.”

“I’m kind of not done yet,” he says. He fishes down into his other pocket, taking out a small box. “So, uh, I talked to your father a while ago. About — this. I mean, we were discussing other things but then I told him I was thinking of asking you because it was maybe somewhat overdue and I didn’t because — I had to figure a lot of shit out, but I think I did.”

“What kind of shit?”

“The kind that made me think that things were going so well, it would be pushing it to — well. Change the situation. Never mind me, I know it was nonsense _now_. Anyway, I told him I meant to, and he asked me if I had rings yet, I said I didn’t and — well, when he and Alannys got married they got _new_ rings.”

Brienne thinks he gets what he’s aiming at.

A moment later, he opens the box. She almost bursts out crying when she sees the silver band that was on her father’s finger for years before he remarried and another one that she’s never really seen on _anyone_ ’s finger before.

“He said he wanted you to have his and your mother’s unless I had other plans, and I said I really didn’t and I’d be more than honored to, except that then I tried them both on and turns out that your father’s really doesn’t fit _me_ but your mom’s does, for some reason, so — not that I’m surprised, but that’s not the fucking point. The point is that it was just before that letter came so I might have planned to do it here which is the only reason why I waited two months, and fuck I’m _way_ off the mark now, but —” He stops, shakes his head, takes a breath, and she’d like to know why the _hell_ he’s being this nervous when he knows she’ll say yes —

“Brienne, I — ten years ago I couldn’t have even begun to consider the bare damned concept of — of what we have right now. I thought you only saw that stuff in movies and that it stayed there for a reason. And now I look back at it and it just feels like I dropped straight inside one —”

“Which one,” she blurts, her fingers finding his wrist before it starts shaking so hard he might drop the box, “ _Stagecoach_?”

He laughs, his entire face lightening up with it. “Yeah, well, _maybe_. Except that since you’ve kind of pulled off all the grand gestures here I figured I would try to _not_ be on the other side for this one. So… let’s say that you’re the kind of girl a man wants to marry. Will you?”

She’s really, _really_ trying her best to keep her face straight as she answers. “Well,” she blurts, “if a man and a woman are in love, it’s all right, ain’t it?”

“Then — then I’m not going to give you a chance to forget me,” he says, and at that point she _does_ let a few tears fall as he slips her father’s ring on her finger, and — damn, it _does_ fit. She takes the box, slips her mother’s on his, and oh, it _does_ quite fit, and she can’t believe he purposefully suggested to come _here_ so he could propose to her but she’s pretty sure that was why he had insisted so much.

His scarred fingers grab hers and she takes another good look at him again — just looking at him, you could guess he’s just passed forty years because there’s some more silver in his hair and beard than when they met, but for the rest it’s still that warm, soft shade of gold that now shines even more under the warm sun, but his face actually looks… somewhat younger these days than it did then. Maybe it’s because he’s more relaxed and because he laughs more and he only drinks when they have people over or when he’s _that_ stressed over his day job, but since he actually loves it and Connington is not so subtly telling him to get the damned degree already so he can give him another promotion, it only happens rarely. For the rest, he’s sticking to jeans that aren’t so tight anymore and t-shirts and he hasn’t worn a dress shirt in years unless it was for formal occasions, and they are a good look on him if you ask for _her_ humble opinion. And _now_ — the only think going through her head is that it’s been eight years and she’s as head over heels for him as she was back when they met and she never cared about marriage either way but now she thinks she can’t wait to marry him and so she tells him, and he laughs against her mouth before kissing her in the middle of the field and she kisses him back at once, her hands going around his waist as his own move behind her shoulders.

“So,” she whispers, “should we wait a bit before joining the blessings of civilization again?”

“Please,” he replies, “I’m not in a hurry. Civilization can wait.”

“Good,” she says, leaning closer, her mouth closing over his again and again and _again_ , and later they’ll get back on the car and he’ll drive the two of them towards the setting sun and they’ll find a nice place to stay at and she’ll spend a hell of a long time kissing him into the mattress and he’ll whisper that when they get to San Francisco they should totally go shopping to spice things up in bed and she’ll tell him that she can’t wait, and then his skin will be hot under her fingers and he’ll tell her _yes_ all over as she rides him as his eyes only focus on her and he’ll come apart under her hands in that way that always makes her feel like she’s soaring and like she’s never going to have enough of it, of _him_ , and she’ll tell him and he’ll look up at her like there’s no one else he’d rather share his life with, and she’ll look down and do the same —

But for now, they just hold on to each other as they stand surrounded by a sea of blue lupins under the warm Monterey sun, and when she asks him if he’s going to write poetry about _this_ , too, he laughs and says he just might and maybe he won’t feel like throwing _that_ away —

She tells him she can’t wait to read it, and then his mouth is on hers again, and when he whispers that he hadn’t known someone could be _this_ happy in their lifetime, it takes nothing to answer, _I know_ and _I hadn’t either_ , because that’s — that’s the truth.

They had dreams, she thinks. They made them real, even if maybe not in the order they had pictured at first. Then she thinks that they aren’t even halfway done because he can do better and he stopped _not_ trying, and she’s barely started teaching and she thinks it’s been enough time and they _might_ think about another baby all in all, and —

They’ve made it until now. She has a feeling they have more of that future they made for each other in front of them.

And she thinks she can’t wait for it.

End.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the Spoon River poem Jaime gives Brienne at the end is [William and Emily](https://www.bartleby.com/84/72.html). ;)
> 
> AAAAND I CAN'T BELIEVE I'M DONE BUT I AM \o/

**Author's Note:**

> I'm leaving for London to see Gwen's play in the next few days so I'll probably post chapters two and three in the following days from mobile since they're done and beta-ed, but if it takes me a while to reply to comments and stuff forgive me. /o\ see you next round with less angst. Sort of. /o\


End file.
